“Chloe!” The name of the stranger struck him like a bolt out of the blue. “I think that’s what she called herself? Right, it was Chloe.”

Trevor dressed and opened his wallet. A plastic window revealed an ID with PRESS written in big letters on it. He pulled out four hundred Swiss francs, placed them on the bedside table next to the girl and quickly left the room. Soon, he was outside the hotel on the street.

Christmas was fast approaching and the weather in Geneva was warm and autumnal. At night the temperature would fall to near freezing, which was unseasonably warm, but for Trevor, who had recently flown in from the Sahara, the weather was quite pleasant. The temperature in the desert at night also rarely rose above 3–4oC.

Beau-Rivage Hotel to Rue du Cendrier is about a twenty-minute walk along the city’s promenade.

Trevor felt very agitated before the second session. Until this point, he did not fully understand what had happened to him the day before. Over the past twenty hours, he kept thinking about the office of the psychologist Amanda, listening over and over to his own voice broadcast by the speakers of a small portable recorder, telling an incredible story of a part of his life that nobody knew about, hidden somewhere deep in his subconscious.

It had all started several days earlier, after an unexpected encounter and what he thought was an innocent proposal.

“Yes, Trevor, these are some fine rocks,” said an elderly jeweler, who was unable to roll his ‘r’ as he spoke, as he examined a round diamond the size of a hazelnut. “Take this one – pure perfection.”

A short gray-haired Jew with horn-rimmed glasses perched on his head had been inspecting the diamond for five minutes through a thick magnifying glass, holding it with fine tweezers in his white cotton gloves.

He carefully returned the stone and picked up another from the handful of nearly identical in size and shape diamonds scattered on a black lacquered table.

“Wonderful!” He was clearly admiring them. “The cut is amazing! The girdle on all of them is as sharp as a knife. The colors and purity are like dew from the sky…

Trevor was introduced to Lev Goldenberg, a jeweler and emigrant from the Soviet Union, by Rochefort, chief editor at Les Mondes, who often ordered jewelry from him.

Lev Goldenberg created remarkable copies of the best collections offered by the leading jewelry brands of Europe.

“Show me a photo of a masterpiece and I will make you one that is hundred times better at half the cost,” he loved to say every time potential clients approached him. Indeed, he was the finest craftsman.

“I have a client who can purchase all of these in one lot,” said the old jeweler as he eyed yet another rock. “If you negotiate well, he will pay five million right away, maybe more.”

“Lev, I wasn’t thinking of selling just yet. I just need a safe place to keep them for a while.”

“Teo, you don’t understand,” the jeweler said softly, prying his gaze from the diamond to give Trevor a piercing look. “Five million euros, not dollars. That’s a lot of money, my friend.”

“Lev, I need a safe place for a couple of days, until Christmas. I'm staying at a hotel and it would be extremely reckless of me to keep them in a safe there.”

– Tov[5], my friend, all right,” said the jeweler somewhat dejectedly. He gathered the stones in a green velvet bag. “You know you won’t find a safer place. But if you do decide to sell, just let me know and I will arrange everything within two-three hours.”

Shortly after the conversation with the jeweler, Trevor was sitting on the open terrace of a small restaurant in the heart of Geneva, sipping coffee and reading the latest newspapers.