Parisians wait anxiously for le facteur

Press, 6 December 1989, Page 23

Parisians wait anxiously for le facteur

KEN COATES meets’ a Paris postie from Christchurch:

IT IS A glorious summer morning in south-east Paris. The postie, carrying a lighter-than-usual bag of mail over her shoulder, hasn’t a care in the world.

Her round is among high-rise apartment blocks and she puts mail in batteries of boxes at entrances. Concierges and people in the street greet the traditional and respected figure of le facteur, the postman — in this case, a woman. Madame Helen Coupez, 40 years old, slim and athleticlooking, lives in the Post Office hostel where she has a small flat. She speaks French, as well as any Parisienne. No-one realises the friendly postie, who often stops for a chat, is a New Zealander, formerly Helen Gardner, of Christchurch. To enter the postal service, she sat and passed a national public service examination against thousands of native-born applicants. She has been a postie in Paris for two years and loves it. . “It really is an extremely _ enjoyable experience,” she says * while on holiday visiting her parents, Jim and Madge Gardner. "I have often caught myself thinking how utterly happy I am doing something I thought would be a big disadvantage.” The major advantage for Helen is that she has a secure job after four years of sporadic, seasonal work, including grape picking. It was while working in a Bordeaux vineyard nine years ago that she met her future husband, Andre Coupez, a sculptor.

It all began in New Zealand after she had “drifted in and out of varsity at the age most people do,” and became keenly interested in French. It did not take too much persuasion by a girlfriend keen on some overseas experience that grape picking in France would be a good idea. The work was enjoyable but tough. The winery was “the kind of small place one dreams about.” Helen Gardner came back to Christchurch, bringing Andre. They were married in 1982 and

stayed a year before returning to France. Andre was living near the coastal town of Vannes, in Brittany. His work, like that of many artists and writers, is governed by his inspiration, and he does not have a regular income. The couple returned to the Bordeaux vineyard three years in succession for seasonal work,

but life was financially quite difficult, Helen says. At that stage, she could get by reasonably well in French, but not well enough to land a steady job. Passing the exam (it included geography, maths and French) gave her entry to the Post Office. Although it is not replac-

ing employees, it is not firing them. It meant, though, that she has to work in Paris for a time, a requirement of all new Post Office employees. The capital has a high turnver of staff because many workers prefer to live and work in their home regions.

Technically, Helen Coupez still lives near Vannes, where the couple rent a house. She travels home during her time off. During the last 10 months, when she had been on night work, this has been for about four days every three weeks. She says they may move closer to Paris after her return. “I am le facteur, the postman,” she says firmly. “Some create la factrice, but I don’t think the word exists. And anyway, I like the anonymity, the neutrality of le factuer.” Much of the traditional status accorded the postman survives. He/she has a much better image than that of Post Office employees further up the scale to whom people complain when they are unhappy. Helen’s round is in the thirteenth arrondissment, an urban residential area of blocks of flats up to 30 storeys high to which tourists never go. Dogs are no hazard since they are kept inside the flats. About the only danger is slipping on frost in the winter. Three deliveries are made each day, including one in the afternoon (N.Z. Post please note). Then there is “the finances,” which involve personal delivery of registered letters, benefits, pensions, money orders and the like. “You have to go up and knock on doors,” says Helen. “I have been out with huge wads of money on me.” Some of the buildings are old, do not have lifts and are inhabited by the less well off who receive benefit payments. For many, le facteur will be the only caller that day, and she will be doubly welcome when bringing the money. “When I got to know my round well, I could allow myself not to be worried when someone wanted to tell me about their life for five or 10 minutes,” she says.

Night mail sorting not only enables her to go home for longer periods, but provides opportunity for interesting and enjoyable conversation. She talks of a kind of natural law whereby in inverse proportion to the dullness of the work,

the interest content of conversation rises. People allow themselves more conversational flights of fancy, she says. “Some nights we have a glorious time, almost like an enjoy? able party with 'lots of humour, some of which equates as a translation of ours. But some is peculiarly French. On other nights, though, no-one feels like talking and hardly a word is exchanged.” Her job provides a feeling of security and she gets 5000 francs (about $1400) in the hand a month. Her round is in an area of ordinary working people so her tips are occasional and small. “I don’t get a very high salary, but its’ a great deal better than being unemployed.” Some Paris posties in the affluent areas of gracious living get fat tips. But all may share in the traditional selling of calendars at Christmas, out of working hours, and some make as much as a month’s salary. It is obvious Helen loves the French language. She went to France in the first place to see how it was spoken and to use the subjunctive every day. For example, the French may ask: “Veux-tu que je le fasse?” (literally translatable as “do you want that I might do this?”)

“It is such a beautiful construction and because it is used in French often, I find that pleasurable.” In France, she merges with the population, it seems. She does not mix with other Englishspeaking people, nor is she one of a group of Kiwi expatriates. Paris is a melting pot of people from other regions and countries. It does not occur to most French people that French is not her native language. Only occasionally does someone ask Helen about her accent, assuming it is regional. Most haven’t a clue about New Zealand, or where it is, so she describes her accent as English. Just as the English have little time for frog-eating Frenchies, the French are not much enamoured of the English. Helen says older people in France have an image of bowlerhatted, stiff upper-lipped gents

who are reserved and haughty. Young people don’t like the English in the form of soccer hooligans. “On the whole, the French don’t think of the English much at all,” she says. “It’s just not an issue, though Mrs Thatcher is not popular as she always seems to be pushing British interests which are not French interests.” With an expressive Gallic shrug, Helen maintains she feels equally at home in both France and New Zealand. “If people could see me in a place like this (she makes a sweeping gesture, taking in the secluded lawn and gardens of her parents’ home) they would be so envious. And yet I insist on shutting myself up in five square metres and doing some tedious job ...” Madame Coupez is down-to-earth about her life in the French capital. “The cultural life of Paris? — pouf! — I just work there.” Being a postie has its down side: The bag of mail gets so heavy around Christmas it becomes two bags, one of which is dropped by van at a half-way point. “So when you have to carry heavy loads and it is raining and c01d... it is dreadful.” How does she find the French? The more formality about their way of life pleases her. She has been noting how people interact here, the almost studied-casual “G’day, how are ya?” greeting contrasts with the way she kisses or shakes the hand of all her 18 fellow workers when she arrives at work. A certain formality, she says, facilitates things so there are certain rails along which they can run. French formality is not cold, she finds, and it can be used comfortably to keep people at their distance. “It is a framework within which one can operate according to how you feel, whereas here, people are not at home with formality and must be shown to be matey above all.” She refers to “a blinkered chauvinism” of the sort that would prompt a Frenchman to say of France’s nuclear testing in the South Pacific “that is what France is doing.”

The average French person is aware of the bomb testing but couldn’t give a row of buttons, Helen says. No doubt if it were on their own back doorstep they would have a different perception. The opinion of the French is that they are the greatest culinary nation there is, she says. But she professes to be less impressed with the food than some people. “I accept they have given the world a lot, but it is over-rated.” She loves eating but not cooking, and mentions wholemeal pasta, “something the average French person would not touch with a 40-foot barge pole.” But she is enthusiastic about the coffee in Paris cafes and sighs: “Ohh.. . parking myself on the terrace of a cafe in the Boulevard St Michel... the exquisite coffee.”

One thinks of the French as volatile and voluble, but they are less so than expected, says Helen. Down towards the Mediterranean, they are more so. “But I do enjoy the company of a lot of French people who while they may speak more words per minute, the content is not necessarily all that different from conversation here.” The image of the French all drinking their wine with elegance and restraint is not borne out by Helen’s experience. Elegant bibbers there may be, but when she first went to Brittany, she noted a high degree of drunkenness, usually male, in rural areas. It was not until later she learned that Bretons in the Morbihan district have the highest alcohol-induced death rate in the country. In contrast, she knows quite a number of people who don’t drink at all. If the French are proud and arrogant, to her that seems normal, she says with a laugh. She is protective about the country she has adopted and loves what she calls its Frenchness. Madame Coupez says the life of a postie in Paris suits her. She has become quite fit, appreciates merging into the French way of life — being accepted as part of it — and enjoys the ambience of the night work.