1
When I arrived in Lyon in September 1969, I was under the impression that I needed to establish an address before contacting the Fulbright Commission who had hired me for a teaching fellowship. The day after I moved into my little house-keeping room off the Place des Terreaux, I sent a brief letter to the Embassy in Paris informing the Commission of my new address. (I had no telephone; few people did.)
It seemed like immediately (it must have been the next day) when I received a telegram expressing some urgency that the Commission had been waiting and waiting for me to tell them of my new bank account so that they could send me my first paycheck (which they apparently thought I would need to get set up), and saying that I should hurry to the Post Office to pick up my first pay in cash!
Well, indeed I did hurry right over to the Poste, which I had noticed only a couple of blocks away. There with a minimum of hullabaloo, I picked up this wad of French bills. I was much impressed with the Commission’s concern for my welfare as well as the efficiency with which they had solved their problem.
But as I emerged on the Avenue, I began to realize that now the problem was mine. The door to my little room was about as thick as the cardboard of a sturdy packing box – that is, not secure at all. I didn’t know my neighbors (and never did, by the way, although I lived there for eight or nine months). “Were they possible thieves?’ I wondered.
Nor did I want to be walking around the streets with such a big wad of bills in my pocket. It seemed like more money than I would or could spend for a month or more: what could I do? Well, I needed a bank account for the Commission’s convenience anyway as they wanted to transfer my pay each month from their account to mine.
It happened that right across the street from the Poste was a Banque de France, with an inviting doorway flanked by a well-armed and solemn-faced guard. “What could be more safe and secure?” I asked myself.
Sure enough, as I strolled toward the door, it seemed to me that the guard nodded respectfully. Once I stepped into the large open room – which was recognizable as a bank, with a large counter in the center for customers to fill out their deposit or withdrawal slips, and ringed by tellers’ cages – I saw an inside guard, also with a sidearm, who was actually coming toward me smiling pleasantly. (I must have looked inquisitive if not bewildered as to where to go.) And he asked me what I wished to do at the Banque de France.
I showed him the wad of cash I had just been given at the Poste, which my employer had sent me. I felt I could not trust that my little room was secure – (Ah, he nodded with sympathy) – I didn’t want to be walking around with that much… (Non, non, surtot pas, he seemed to say).
“A new account is what you want,” he said; “Step right to that desk there. Mlle. ________ will be there shortly.”
I went over to the desk, and after a moment or two a young woman did indeed appear. She asked me pleasantly what she could do to help. “Well,” I said, showing her the wad of bills, “I have just received this payment in cash from my employer” – perhaps I mentioned the U. S. Embassy – “who would prefer from then on to simply transfer my monthly compensation.”
Ah, she began to look through her top drawer. “AND even more urgently,” I started – she looked up – “My little room cannot be securely locked up, and I didn’t want to be carrying around all that cash, so…” Oui, oui, she indicated she got it. Just to be sure, I said, “So I need an account to put this money in so it will be safe.” “Yes, yes, Monsieur. You want to open a new account!”
So she got out paperwork, took a lot of information from my passport, with care took down my local address which I told her… Everything seemed to be going well; I relaxed. Even here in this most imposing of banks, people were sympathetic, helpful, even intelligent. Even among the French, I had been told, Lyon was known as “the city of high walls” – that is, where non-locals were shut out. That just wasn’t true, I was thinking.
After a few minutes of her filling out one form and then another, of various sizes, she looked up. I took that as my cue to hold out the wad of cash. “Oh, no, no, Monsieur,” she said, “you need to see a Director. Be pleased to come with me.”
She rose and walked toward the back, going right behind the tellers’ cages, waving me along behind her. At an office, she looked in, softly said a few words, looked encouragingly back at me, then went in with my passport and all the little papers she had been filling out.
When I got to the door, she was tell M.________ that I, Monsieur Derrique, needed an account into which my pay could be transferred AND, more important, I had a sum in cash – I held out my wad of bills – which I could not feel secure leaving in my little room or… Ah non, M.________ indicated that he understood. The young woman went away, after shaking hands. M._______ indicated a chair but shook hands before I made myself comfortable.
“Boy,” I was thinking, “what individual attention I was getting, just a single guy walking in off the street… And this was the Banque … de … France!"
M.________ asked me some questions, apparently checking me out, seeing if I seemed respectable, had nothing up my sleeve. I was impressed by the level of caution. “Would my money ever be safe here!” I was thinking.
After only a few minutes, Eh bien, Monsieur Derrique, he said with a warm smile. I held out the wad of cash again. O non, monsieur. “The cash will go to the cashier. Please follow me, and we will establish an account for you.” He rose and led me to an adjoining office and introduced me to Mme.________. “This young man,” he said, “needs an account; will you take care of that, please?”
“Yes, yes. Monsieur Derrique, please sit down while I fill out a few forms.” As she busied herself, she started a little conversation. “Where in the USA did I live?” And that sort of thing. So it seemed natural for me to mention that I had just arrived in town and had that very morning just received from the Poste my first monthly pay – I held up the wad for her to see – and my room was not a good place to leave it…
Unlike the others, Mme.______ became excited at hearing my story. Leaving me for a moment, she called to M.________ in the office on the other side of her from her boss’s office, who appeared, shook hands, heard my story from her. Ah! he responded, as though I had done something especially brilliant. He waved at one, then two other colleagues, who clustered outside Mme._______’s little office. “This young man,” he explained (proudly, I thought), has a certain amount – I showed my wad of bills – but his room (sympathetic murmurings), his room is not secure.” Yes, they understood, showing equal enthusiasm. “No, his room would not be safe.” “Yes, yes.” “Well, how interesting.”
Mme._____ came forward with my passport and her papers. I figured this was not yet the time to offer my wad of cash; she did not seem to be the cashier. The crowd parted enough for us to make our way back toward the open area; she indicated I should go there while she made arrangements with the cashier.
I went out front.
Mme.____ spoke quietly to one of the men behind the cages and then nodded in my direction; she gave him the paperwork and beckoned me to step up to his window. I now realized that his window was the only one with thick Plexiglas around it; he was indeed the cashier.
And he was all business. He slipped my passport through the little opening under the Plexiglas. He looked up – I held up the bills - yes, he nodded. I began to stuff the bills through the opening. He straightened them, and after counting them two times rather carefully, he wrote in what looked quite a bit like a checkbook. It was! After a moment more, he slipped the checkbook under the window to me and said, “Monsieur, you now have a comte etranger (foreigner’s account) in the Banque de France!"
As I headed for the door, the guard nodded cheerfully. I had the sense that the guard outside too, knew that now I was legit.
The telegram saying go directly to the Post Office had come barely more than an hour before, and now I (me!) could write cheques on the Banque de France! Wow, I thought as I headed across the Place des Terreaux and up the stairs to my little, much maligned room. Did that feel like an accomplishment, or what?
2
In Lyon in those days, there were actually two mail deliveries each day: one about 9 a.m. and one about 4 p.m. Boy, was I surprised when at 4 that day, there was already a letter from my Banque de France. Wasn’t that efficient?
Sure enough, it was a letter signed by the Directeur himself (not the lesser person I had met, apparently) confirming that I now had a checking account in his bank. But it went on to say there was a certain problem, so would I please come to the bank at my earliest convenience.
What could it be? I wondered, not really concerned since I had succeeded in opening the account. But I did hurry the one or two blocks down the Avenue and entered my new bank with about 30 minutes to go before 5.
I did not really recognize anyone, strangely, but I went to the older woman sitting with a small stack of papers at the desk where I had started that morning. I showed her the letter. “Oh,” she seemed a little concerned – perhaps disturbed because she knew I might be concerned myself – and hurried off toward the back where the private offices were.
In a moment, a nice-looking slender man in a handsome suit came out to me, introduced himself as the Directeur, and invited me to his office. His was a bit larger than the others I had seen, and it had a window. “Monsieur Derrique,” he said…
He seemed embarrassed that the staff had made a minor error when I was there earlier; he did not apologize but explained carefully. It seemed that I had opened an account in which one could not deposit cash.
“You can understand, Monsieur, I am sure. As a foreign national, you are entitled to the comte etranger that you now have, and we look forward to receiving your pay from Paris. We French, you see, cannot allow a situation in which a foreign national deposits cash – French currency – and then writes a check to someone, or some bank, in another country. “O, non non, the economy would collapse! I am sure you understand that, Monsieur.”
Ainsi (and so) “we will have to return to you the cash that you deposited with us this morning and await your next paycheck from Paris in a month.”
I must say, the Directeur seemed satisfied with his explanation – which I had to admit was succinct and clear – “But, but,” I explained in turn, “the reason I came here at all, at least today, was because I had this wad of cash which I had just received at the Poste, but my little room is not secure, and I didn’t feel comfortable carrying around that much cash… It could be stolen, I was afraid.” I may have been somewhat animated.
“Ah yes,” he said, “We are a banque, you know; on the cash matter, we cannot help you.”
I didn’t want to seem uncooperative to such an important man, but I persisted a little, out of sheer annoyance, explaining that I had told the very first people I had met on his staff what I wished to do. I had shown them the cash and said I wanted to deposit it…
He pointed out that at their level we could not expect the staff to understood that cash cannot be deposited in a comte etranger, and with that he was leading me back to the cashier behind the Plexiglas. A different man there from the morning’s cashier had a stack of bills ready, which he counted out and then shoved to me under the glass barrier. I took it; I may have even said, “Merci, Monsieur.”
3
As I walked slowly toward the door of the Banque de France, I noticed that the older woman at the first desk was looking sympathetically in my direction. When I came over to her, she asked if I had concluded my business satisfactorily.
Well, no, Madame. I had not, I confessed and could not stop myself from telling her the whole story. I showed her the new wad of cash and pointed out that my pitiful little room was not safe, and I couldn’t just carry around that much cash – a whole month’s salary after all – All I had wanted to do was to leave it somewhere safe, but in my type of account, the Directeur had told me, I could not deposit any cash!
“Un comte etranger?” she asked. I nodded. “Mais oui, a foreign national could bankrupt the state that way.” She was proud of knowing and understanding the compelling reasoning behind the Banque de France’s sound and wise policy.
“But what am I to do with this money?”
Ah oui, I see the probleme. That had not occurred to her, any more than it had to Monsieur le Directeur. She turned to the woman at the next desk, calling her by her first name. She came over. The older woman explained that I had come in to deposit some cash – I indicated that I was holding a little stack of bills – but of course, I could not deposit cash in a comte etranger.
Ah oui, je comprend, this younger woman said, apparently pleased that she had understood the g-d policy.
“So now,” I interrupted their little tete-a-tete, what am I to do?” I said, holding up the bills again.
Both women were at last engaged in trying to help me solve my problem.
After a moment, the younger woman’s face brightened. “You know, Mme. _____. You know what I would do if I had some cash to deposit?” The older woman seemed interested.
The younger woman looked sideways at me and said, “If I had any money to deposit, I would put it in a Caisse d’Epargne!” That sounded like a savings account. Mme._____ was not sure but did slowly nod her head.
Emboldened, the junior staff member spoke directly to me. “I would go just across the street. There,” she pointed. “To the Caisse d’Epargne.”
4
It was still a few minutes before 5. I said “Merci” and hustled outside. Sure enough, there was a little office in a store-front next door to the Poste with the letters above the door indicating it was a “Caisse d’Epargne.” Frankly, I have to admit I was skeptical. After all, that young woman in the Banque de France was just a junior clerk …
But I scurried across the street and opened the door across the way. The room was crowded, and there were three or four people already forming a queue. My heart sank a little further. But the line moved quickly, each person taking only a moment or two. Three or four people had gotten in line behind me. “How long would it take to open a new account?” I worried.
When it was my turn I handed over my passport, saying something like “I need to open a new account for this money,” still again showing my wad of bills. (I did try to shield view of it a little from the others in the room.)
Oui, Monsieur. Attendez une seconde. “Yes, sir. Wait just a moment.” Another clerk appeared and started waiting on the other people in the line, who appeared to have no interest in me or my business. The person who took my passport went to a desk with a typewriter and slipped what looked just like a passbook at a Savings and Loan into the typewriter. She consulted my passport, and after only a minute or two she returned and said, “Now, on this account you will earn interest at the rate of --%.” She handed me back the passport and the little book she had typed upon and gestured that I was next in line.
The other clerk did not really meet my gaze, so intent was she on serving those of us who were waiting. After taking my cash, she wrote something in my book, noted something on a ledger in front of her, stamped my book with something – which turned out to be the date – and handed it to me, looking at the next person in line.
This whole thing had taken no more than fifteen minutes or so. Back on the street, I saw that the little book said I had deposited the correct amount and had a lot of blanks on an empty grid to record future withdrawals and deposits.
So, now I had two bank accounts, and all was well again.
The experience was already beginning to seem… well, funny!
***
