La Carte Bleu Part II: The Factuer

All I want is my carte bleu – my key to internet, cell phones, hassle free groceries, the outside world. Instead of using it, it lies dormant in a metal box, sharing space with outdated news and unread birthday cards…because no one can find the mailbox key.

I figured only the post office could help me now. I trekked up to Ramatuelle and explained my situation entirely in French (because no one there speaks English). The woman behind the counter responded with: “I can’t help you.”

Surprise, surprise. “Who can, Madame?”

She did the typical French puff and shrug, then, “The facteur, I guess. You can speak with the facteur.”

The what? I didn’t know that word. (I still don’t.) “The factuer? Who is he?”

“The factuer is the factuer, obviously.”

Obviously. “Ok, well can the man who brings the mail leave the mailbox open?”

“No. Speak with the factuer.”

I left.


The next day I visited Alberte and Z. Z knows everything and can fix anything, so I asked him if they could open the mailbox.

“No, the whole family has asked me. I don’t have the key and cannot open the box.” It was the first time Z couldn’t fix it. “But,” he added quickly, “you can speak with the factuer.”

OMG. Who is this mysterious factuer?!

“Sometimes he is at the post office. You must go between 9:30 and 10:00 a.m., and maybe he will be there.”

Nothing is ever easy here.


Monday my father and I wound our way down our mountain and up the hill to Ramatuelle’s town center to visit the post office at the suggested hour. “What do you think, B? Think he’ll be here?”

“Absolutely not!” He laughed as he pulled away.

I marched in anyways and demanded to see the mysterious factuer.

“For what?” The woman asked – the same woman who “helped” me two days before. I explained the situation all over again. She pulled her lips tight and made a noise that assured me the factuer was far too busy and too important to see me. “But I will check,” she said generously.

She walked out of the main room into a tiny office. I couldn’t see anything, but I heard the voices – hers and a man’s. The French was too quick, too muffled to follow. Would the great and powerful Oz see me? Will he grant me my one wish? Suddenly a loud crash – the voices grew heated, quicker. A third voice joined the conversation. Things calmed down… down to a whisper. What was going on?

She emerged with an earnest expression. “He will see you.”

I waited five more minutes in anxious anticipation. He walked slowly out of the room, leaned heavily against the counter that separated us, and said in a long, low voice: “Oui?”

My Oz was a typical forty-something Ramatuellean: tall and too thin, absurdly laid back, soft white hair that messily hung below his chin, golden skin tanned from life under the sun. He wore the obnoxious honeybee-yellow shirts of the French postal system. Not very intimidating.

I explained my situation for yet another time. The moment I finished he demanded: “So what do you want?”

“I want my mail.” Duh.

“Then I come to your house and I open the mailbox.”

A glitter of hope. “At what time?”

“Pufft,” he said in that ridiculous way only the French can manage, “perhaps around 2:30? Or 4?”

I rolled my eyes. The French – especially the ones who live the lazy sun-baked lifestyle of the south – are never good with time. “I won’t be home,” I explained. “Can you leave it open?”

He launched into a long explanation in rapid French that I couldn’t understand for the life of me. But he nodded agreeably and said goodbye, so I figured I’d won my cause.

We’ll see this afternoon, when we return from the Gorge.