Paris On Air

by Oliver Gee

  Even though we were apparently at the right platform, Fabien kept his eyes on the departure board, just like everyone else. Me, I observed the crowd. Would-be travellers. Tired Bretons. All desperate to get on that one train for Brittany. And suddenly, a ripple of panic hit the crowd. The departure board had clicked over and prompted a stampede. Bretons were scrambling over each other, elbowing their way forward, and barging towards the platform. And they were all running towards us. I looked up at the board. Rennes, Brittany: Platform Four. Fabien smiled. We were at the front of the crowd, and we got on the train as soon as the doors opened. Sure, we didn’t have tickets, but neither did most of the others. We headed for the bar, as all the actual seats were taken by those lucky enough to have booked the 7 pm train. The rest of us who managed to get on board filled up the bar and the spaces between the carriages. The Bretons remaining on the platform weren’t so lucky and were eventually refused permission to board.

  “These rail strikes are an embarrassment,” Fabien admitted as the train pulled away from the station. “But there’s one piece of good news. Because our train was cancelled, I’ll be claiming a refund for us all. This is a free trip to Brittany! And what’s more, we’re already in the bar.”

  If I’d have been travelling alone, I probably wouldn’t have even tried to get on the train. I’d have been on a bus, or staying home for the weekend. Who’d have thought travelling with a Frenchman could open such doors? And I soon learned that there’s no better way to see Brittany than with a Breton.

  Fabien’s family lived in a village near Saint-Brieuc, the small town where he grew up. The town isn’t famous for anything unless you are a big fan of the annual Tour de France cycling race, which sometimes passes through. But from the moment we stepped into Fabien’s house, I was hit by the feeling of actually being in France for the first time. Sure, walking down the cobbled streets of Montmartre, or sitting on a cafe terrace in the Left Bank of Paris both felt very French. But Paris isn’t France, and France isn’t Paris - as anyone from either side would be quick to tell you.

  Fabien’s mother welcomed us as their pet dogs jumped at our legs. And his mother, as a rule, decided she wouldn’t speak a word of English with us, even though she probably could have done.

  “There’s no better way to learn French than to immerse yourself,” she said.

  Fabien’s family served us hot galette pancakes with cheese and sausage, typical Breton food. We drank locally made cider, and we talked long into the night about the differences between France, Australia, and Sweden.

  As the night drew to an end, part of me was sad to realize that I couldn’t understand France the way I could if I had French in-laws like so many other expats did. I didn’t have a family out in the French countryside who’d point out the idiosyncrasies of the French, the tricks to the best recipes, or the meaning of certain gesticulations. The thing is - it’s exceptionally difficult to figure out a country when you don’t have close access to one of its families. French friends are great, and they can teach you a lot, but it’s not the same thing. As I observed the Brittany skies from Fabien’s childhood bedroom, I was beginning to realize that I might never understand France and the French without such an opportunity.

  Luckily, way down the line, I would start a podcast all about figuring out France, a podcast that would teach me and hundreds of thousands of listeners about this fascinating country. But at this point I was still just a humble journalist struggling to find my way. My mind drifted as I breathed fresh country air and as the stars came out in the Brittany sky.

  3.4 The countryside

  We woke up the next morning to a full French breakfast. The table was laid out with fresh bread, homemade jam, and plenty of pastries.

  “Eat up, eat up,” said Fabien’s mother. “There’s plenty left and we’ve got a lot to do today.”

  We spent the day exploring the coastal towns of Brittany, including the magnificent fortified Saint Malo. On the way home, we came to an unusually named town, Erquy. It was a small and quiet place, perched by the seaside and dotted with cafes, bars, and restaurants.

  “This town should be famous,” Fabien said, shaking his head, as we sat down for another cider. “Have you heard of Asterix, the comic? Well take a look around. You’re in the comic book! This is the town that is said to have inspired it all. But you’d never know.”

  He was right. After the cider we took a look around, but there wasn’t even a vague hint that it was connected to one of the world’s most famous comic books. Not even a gift shop with little Asterix toys. Or postcards. I couldn’t believe it. Not least because the French are obsessed with comic books, or bandes dessinées as they’re known here. But Erquy didn’t seem to care. In some countries they’d rename such a place “Asterix Town” and watch the tourists fly in. There’d be Obelix ice-cream and magic potion cocktails. But in Erquy there was nothing.

  “The funniest thing,” Fabien said, “is that someone once made an enormous stone statue of Obelix - you know, the big one who fell in the magic potion as a baby - and they offered it to the town as a gift. But the town refused it. They didn’t want it. And I’ve got no idea why.”

  He gazed out to sea, perhaps reflecting on his days in the navy. Simpler times. Without the mainland hassles of Paris. The fickle Erquy residents. The rail strikes.

  “So what happened to the giant statue?” I asked.

  “Oh my step-dad took it. It’s sitting in the back garden of his bed-and-breakfast in a nearby town. It makes no sense that it’s there, but my step-dad quite likes it.”

  And so it was, as we saw later in the afternoon. A mammoth stone statue of Obelix, the kind of thing that could have stood proudly in a park in the middle of Erquy. But it was in the middle of a garden in the middle of nowhere, without even an explanation.

  The weekend was drawing to a close, so we headed back to Fabien’s village to get a good night’s sleep before taking the early train to Paris.

  Of course, that train was cancelled too - the strikes were apparently still on - so we hopped on board another, and rode in the bar carriage once again. As the Brittany countryside rushed by the bar window, I got to thinking about the region, the local pride, and the Obelix statue. The French are a proud bunch, and none are prouder than those outside of Paris. But while they’ll bleed in the colours of their flag, they’re not going to force anything on you. Maybe they don’t want our tourist dollars. Maybe they don’t all want statues of Obelix and postcards of Asterix. It seemed to me that people in the countryside were quite happy to leave the tourists to Paris and Disney World. Sure, my first trip to “the real France” was only a weekend, but I felt like I was coming back to Paris with a deeper understanding of the country.

  No, France isn’t Paris and Paris isn’t France. And everyone in the country seems pretty happy to keep it like that.

  3.5 French kissing

  As I pulled into Lyon on a warm summer afternoon Chantelle waved to me from the window of her second-floor apartment. She buzzed me into her building, I climbed the stairs, and she flung open the door to greet me. And then we kissed. Right on the lips.

  Now, while this might sound like a romantic start to chapter 3.5, I’m afraid you’re getting it all wrong, just like I was. You see, I’d never met Chantelle before. I’d never even seen her. Chantelle was nothing more than the owner of the apartment that I was renting for the weekend. So why were we kissing on the lips? Well, I wondered the same thing, and Lina, who was standing beside me, wasn’t looking too impressed.

  “Oh la la, I’m so sorry,” Chantelle said, blushing. “But I see what has happened. It’s la bise, it’s different here. In Lyon, we start the greeting kisses on the right hand side. You should move your own head right, then left. Not left then right, like in Paris.”

  So what had happened was that as I moved my head to the left to kiss the air by Chantelle’s right cheek (as they do in Paris), she
had moved her head to to her right to kiss my left cheek. And as a result, our air kiss greeting turned into a good old fashioned mouth-to-mouth smooch.

  This was all a bit unfair, if you ask me. I had spent a long time in Paris accepting and eventually getting comfortable with the air-kissing custom. But I’d never considered it could be a whole different dance across France. And while my first visit to Lyon was lovely, it was the cheek kissing that stayed with me. The very concept that such a fundamental French custom could be reversed in different towns fascinated me. In fact, the whole matter of cheek-kissing seemed to get more complicated the closer I looked into it. And let me just say, if you think it all sounds pretty simple, then you either don’t understand it, or you’re a genius. Here’s my take on how it works.

  The basic idea is that when you meet someone of the opposite sex in France, you touch cheeks with them and make a kissing noise in the air. Then repeat this for the other cheek. Easy enough, right?

  Wrong. Here are the exceptions to the rule.

  If they’re from outside of Paris, they may kiss more, or fewer, times.

  Non-Parisians may start on the right instead of the left.

  Tourists and expats might be uncomfortable with kissing.

  Now, if he’s a man and you’re a man, you need to earn the kiss. There are a few ways you can attain kissing status with another Frenchman.

  4a) You are a close relative to the Frenchman. Brother, father, son, or cousin.

  4b) You get to know them closely or have married into their family.

  I’m rather captivated by the topic. And if you think I’m exaggerating the complexity of la bise, well let me tell you that if anything I’m underplaying it. Just take a look at point one above and think about it. If you’re from Paris, you kiss twice, left then right. If you’re from the south of France then you kiss three times. Now, what happens when a Parisian and a Provençal meet on holiday in the west of France, where you’re allegedly supposed to kiss four times? Is there an air kiss where someone goes in for the third when the other is retreating to start some small talk? Or do they just know, because that’s how it is?

  Point two is intriguing too, the whole “Which side to start on?” thing. I’ll never forget my awkward smooch with Chantelle, but I also wonder how many times that happens among French people.

  Point three above, the whole expat thing, that can ruin a lot, too. You’re at a party with a mix of French people and expats, and you go around the room kissing the girls and shaking hands with the boys. You’re meeting them for the first time, so you have no idea where they’re from. You come to a Swedish woman. There’s every chance that as you lean in for the kiss she will offer you her hand to shake (gender equality above all else!). She might even go for the more traditional Swedish hug as a force of habit. And if everyone doesn’t play along with the kissing game, someone is bound to look stupid.

  I have a friend, Cyril, who is from Nice on the Mediterranean coast. We are on kissing terms now (although of course we weren’t at first). But in Nice, they start on the right. So every time I go in to kiss him, we end up meeting in the middle, just like with the woman in Lyon. I bring it up nearly every time. “You’re not in Nice anymore, Cyril, adapt,” I say. But he doesn’t care. He had the last laugh once when he invited me to a party in Paris with all his family and friends from Nice. Every single one of them went to the right for the first kiss when I met them. So I gave up and went right for the night too.

  But of all the twists and turns of this little dance, the part I find the most interesting is the idea of earning the kiss from another Frenchman. A friend of mine from Toulouse, Arnaud, explained it to me.

  “If, say, we were to get really drunk tonight and end up swimming in the canal, we’d kiss from that point on. If we went out on a wild bender of a night, we’d kiss afterwards too,” he told me.

  “So it’s about alcohol, then?”

  “No, it’s more about going through some kind of adventure or ordeal together. When you both come out on the other side, you just know that it’s time to start kissing. It’s almost like you’ve become a brother,” he said.

  What a minefield! My mind was racing, as usual, with the idea of earning the kiss from French friends. Of ducking, diving, swimming in canals, going on adventures, having a true French brother at the end of it all.

  Unfortunately, it never happened with Arnaud. In fact, I rarely see him anymore. Since we chatted about kissing that day by the canal, three years ago, Arnaud has gotten married and has two kids. When I occasionally see him, we simply shake hands. I can’t help wondering what adventures we missed.

  3.6 The bank

  My September birthday was fast approaching and I’d booked the chateau for it. Life was too short not to, I figured. I got a guest list together and told everyone that for €120 each, we could spend the weekend living like kings and queens (with food and alcohol included). A few dozen people confirmed they were in. Money was still tight for me, as usual, but I had enough to cover the cost of renting the chateau, provided of course, that everyone paid me back straight away. Perhaps I didn’t stress the urgency of the situation enough, because almost no one transferred their share upfront. I found this out when I got a call from the bank to tell me my balance was dangerously low. So low, in fact, that I had negative money in the bank. I was well beyond a month’s rent in the negatives, and the bank wanted to talk about it.

  Now I don’t know how it works in the country you’re in, but where I’m from, when you run out of money your bank card stops working. Quite simple, really. But nothing is simple in France. In fact, I’d never even considered a negative bank balance to be a possibility. And how did it get so far into the negatives, I wondered. I mean, I obviously rented a chateau, but I thought I had enough to cover the deposit. I went into the bank to enquire why I owed them so much money. The woman at the desk explained.

  “Well, monsieur, you’ve gone into the negatives on your balance, and you’re not allowed to do that,” she said.

  “But why is it so far negative?” I asked. I surely hadn’t frittered away that much while I was watching my spending.

  “Well, every time you’ve used your card since you went under zero, we’ve simply charged you 20 euros as a fee.”

  A €20 fee? The banker printed out my statement and proved to me that this was exactly what she had done. We perused it together.

  “See, here you bought something for €1 at a supermarket. We charged you €20 for that. That same day you bought something for €1.30. We charged you another €20.”

  “But… but… I was just buying milk. Why didn’t you tell me that I was in the negatives?” I asked. “If I’d known that you would charge me, I wouldn’t have used the card to buy milk.”

  Let’s stop here for a second and be brutally honest. That sentence above is a tremendously tricky one to say if you’re still learning French. It’s what my French teacher would have called the future conditional tense - “If I had known, I wouldn’t have…”. But I had never learned it properly, so obviously I didn’t say it correctly. My mind flashed back to my mocking French teacher and I shuddered.

  In any case, verb tenses and teachers aside, I wasn’t getting anywhere. The Frenchwoman didn’t care that I was being charged €21.30 for a bottle of milk. She even seemed a tiny bit pleased about it. And it was at this precise moment that I learned the importance of having a strong argument if you want to get your way in France. And unfortunately, I learned this because I absolutely didn’t have a strong argument. I had nothing. Just bewilderment. And a growing feeling of despair. I considered getting angry, just like my downstairs neighbour had done with the internet people, but I decided my French still wasn’t up to scratch.

  The banker gave me the “that’s how it is” shrug that I was coming to know so well. I considered pleading my case a little, but I figured I’d think it over instead. So I left. That nig
ht, I was having a canal-side beer with a Parisian mec called Clovis (no kiss, firm handshake, two pumps). Clovis shared his name with the first King of the Francs and had the charm of a TV host. Well, he was a TV host actually. He was also born in Paris - a rare breed in the French capital, where so many locals are actually born elsewhere in the country. I told Clovis my plight and he wasn’t impressed.

  “No one should have to put up with that kind of nonsense. Let me pay a visit to your bank manager. I’ll sort this out. Just tell me when and where.”

  The next day, I saw a performance unlike any I’ve seen before or since. Clovis, dressed up in a suit and tie, strode into the bank and took no prisoners. He played the good cop and the bad cop. He switched from “Hello, mademoiselle, how are you today?” to “You know as well as I do that my client can leave your tiny bank for a dozen others that wouldn’t be hassling him with this kind of rubbish.” It was incredible to watch. The banker couldn’t keep up with him. Every time she got defensive or upset, he turned the charm back on and she melted like a cheese fondue. Like a chess grandmaster, he was knocking down her pieces one by one. Bam, there goes another pawn. She backpedalled, and then boom, she lost her bishop, then her knight. It was quite the sight. Eventually, he convinced her that the bank had been unreasonable and that something would have to be done about it or we’d walk. And it worked. By the time we left, the banker had erased all the fees and made it so my account could sink as far as minus €2,500 before I’d incur further charges. Checkmate! I was dumbfounded. The first time around it was the banker who had won. But this time we beat the bank. Thanks to Clovis, named after the King of the Francs; now more like the King of the Banks.

  “Thanks for doing that for me, it was a treat to watch,” I said. “It’s amazing that that’s what it takes to get things done in this country.”