Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
and American Express, which meant that I got to do everything twice. I spent the afternoon on telephone
lines that sounded as if they were full of water reading out lists of serial numbers:
'RH259—'
I would be interrupted by a tiny voice shouting at me from a foot locker at the bottom of a very deep
lake, 'Is that R A 2 9 9 ...?'
'No, it's
R H 2
five nine—'
'Can you speak up, please?'
'IT'S R H TWO FIVE NINE!!'
'Hello? Are you still there, Mr Byerson? Hello? Hello?'
And so the afternoon went. American Express told me I could get my refund at their Florence office in
the morning. Visa wanted to sleep on it.
'Look, I'm destitute,' I lied. They told me they would have to wire the details to an associate bank in
Florence, or elsewhere in Europe, and I could have the money once the paperwork was sorted out at my
end. I already knew from experience how byzantine Italian banks were - you could have a heart attack in an
Italian bank and they wouldn't call an ambulance until you had filled out a Customer Heart Attack Form and
had it stamped at at least three windows - so I unhesitatingly told her to give me the name of a bank in
Geneva. She did.
In the morning I returned to the Questura and after waiting an hour and a half was taken into a room
called the Ufficio Denuncie. I just loved that. The Office of Denunciations! It made me feel like making
sweeping charges: 'I denounce Michael Heseltine's barber! I denounce the guy who thought Hereford &
Worcester would make a nifty name for a county! I denounce every sales assistant at every Dixons I've ever
been in!'
I was introduced to a young lady in jeans who sat at a desk behind a massive and ancient manual
typewriter. She had a kind, searching face and asked me lots and lots of questions - my name and
address, where I came from, my passport number, what I did for a living, my ten favourite movies of all time,
that sort of thing - and then typed each response with one finger and inordinate slowness, searching the
half-acre keyboard for long minutes before tentatively striking a key, as if fearful of receiving an electric
shock. After each question she had to loosen the typewriter platen and move the sheet of paper around to
get the next answer in the vicinity of the blank space for it. (This was not her strongest skill.) The whole thing
took ages. Finally, I was given a carbon copy of the report to use in securing a refund. The top copy, I have
no doubt, went straight into a wastebasket.
I walked the couple of miles to the American Express office - I was now out of money - wondering if I
would be lectured like a schoolboy who has lost his lunch money. There were seven or eight people, all
Americans, in the single queue and it became evident as we chatted together that we had all had our
pockets picked by children of roughly the same description, though at different places in the city. And this of
course was just the American Express cheques. If you added in all the Visa and other kinds of traveller's
cheques that were taken, and all the cash, then it was obvious that the gypsies must clear at a minimum
$25,000-$30,000 every Sunday afternoon. Presumably the cheques are then laundered through friendly
exchange bureaux around the country. Why do the police care so little about this racket (unless of course
they get a cut)? At all events, American Express replaced my cheques with commendable dispatch, and I
was back on the street fifteen minutes later.
Outside a gypsy woman with a three-year-old on her lap asked me for money. 'I gave already,' I said,
and walked on to the station.