New Book For Review: How Not to Save the World by J. Yinka Thomas

I draped the necklace around my neck but the clasp must not have caught properly. The diamond slid down my chest into the narrow gutter created by the tension of my silk dress. I stood there for a moment feeling the metal press against my flesh then I turned around and headed for the door. Held firm beneath my discount department store gown was the answer to all my problems. All I had to do now was get out of the chateau.
As I strode past the desk, a half-size bronze sculpture of a Samurai, standing guard next to the door, sliced at my thigh with a very sharp sword. The attack ripped through the flimsy fabric and broke the skin on my upper thigh, which began to bleed. The wetness wound its way down my leg. I wrapped my fingers around the bloody tear, lifting the hem of my dress to disguise the hole and ran.
I retraced my steps to the room where I first lost sight of Kat. Still no sign of her. I followed the sound of a solo violin, which led me back towards the ballroom. Every shadow caused my heart to jump so much that I feared it would pop the necklace right out of my dress. No one from the party noticed me as I headed towards the front door, but I’m used to that.
I walked out of the chateau trying to ignore my heart as it complained about the confines of my ribcage. I expected someone to come bursting through the front door at any moment, yelling and screaming, but I didn’t turn around. No shouts, no pounding of feet, just the sweet sound of Chopin drifting through an open window. My rental sat wedged between a Maserati and a Mercedes. I threw myself into the Peugeot, grasped the steering wheel, took a deep breath and sped away.
Just an hour ago, I was Remi Austin, fundraiser for the African Peace Collaborative. Now, as the car carved its way through Swiss vineyards, I was simply a thief on the run.

* *

After a full day at the twentieth annual Peace Conference, I went back to my hotel to get ready for the evening’s fundraiser. An unimaginative floor-length brown gown disguised my body as a bland chocolate popsicle. My caramel suede flats did their usual job of keeping me a hair shorter than most men.
I left the hotel with plenty of time to spare, imagining another night of failed fundraising. My car flirted with the edge of the roadway as I drove out of the city. Heading into the countryside, I passed through the vineyards of Lausanne, driving along the highway that borders Lake Geneva. A few adventurous boats dotted the shiny black surface of the lake. I glanced out the window to admire the beautiful white villas with high columns against the backdrop of the mountains.
I left Kat at the hotel in the early stages of her lengthy prep routine. Kat, our development director, never had trouble raising money. I would need a serious head start. The evening’s event was being held at a chateau belonging to Michel de Sainte Germaine, a wealthy Swiss banker. The place would be crawling with overcompensated hedge fund managers who might be drunk enough to commit a contribution to our cause.
It took over an hour for the car to wind its way through the treacherous mountains before the onboard navigation system warned “Approximately two minutes to destination,” in English, then in French. As soon as I rounded the next bend, the chateau rose into view, standing out like the Emerald Palace. Lit with dozens of lights around its base, Chateau Sainte Germaine sat on a large rock formation, an island in fact, a few meters away from the shore of Lake Lucerne. The bottom half had been carved out of the rock of the island and the top half had been pieced together with large gray stones.
A man in a red jacket signaled me to stop just before the drawbridge. I watched as he parked my car a few meters away, then came back to hand me the keys. With a deep breath, I turned and walked across the bridge that led to the chateau’s front door. As my flats clattered across the wooden planks I heard the waves of the lake lapping against the shore.
Almost out of reach, on the thirty-foot high carved wooden doors sat a large bronze knocker. I used both hands to lift the knocker, letting it land with an unfortunate “Kaboom.”
The door swung open. A tall, thin, graying man in coattails stood there. His face betrayed no emotion. My instinct was to stick my hand through his stomach to see if he was a hologram.
“Bonsoir Mademoiselle,” he said with a bow, still holding onto the door with one hand.
“Bonsoir.” I handed him my invitation. He pulled the door open wide.
My entire San Francisco apartment building could have fit in the entrance hall. The stone walls were lit with flaming torches, the ceiling was too high to make out, and a magnificent marble staircase in the center of the hall led to a set of open doors. Music drifted through the doors along with a damp smell that could not be camouflaged by the scent of the fresh flowers dotting the entranceway. I could hear the drone of a hundred voices coming through the open doorway. As I made my way up the stairs to the ballroom my arm brushed against the cold damp stone wall.
After lingering a few moments in the doorway, I made my way into the melee. The ballroom had vaulted ceilings. Rich tapestries hung on the walls. An orchestra performed in the far corner. Across the room women in elaborate ball gowns and men in coattails were twirling frantically to a quick waltz. Waiters carrying trays of champagne and hors d’oeuvres wove in and out of the crowd. Every few seconds an arm would reach up and snatch a delicate pastry off their silver trays.
I felt conspicuous in my simple dress, not a carat to my name. The weight of the night ahead settled on my shoulders. After my mother’s death a year ago, APC’s stable sources of funding dried up. The organization had lost its charismatic leader and founder. I had lost my anchor, the person whose approval and disapproval guided my every decision.
Now, big donors were more interested in organizations that could demonstrate a strong social return on their investment. Doctors Without Borders could point to the thousands of lives they have saved. Share Our Strength could speak about the hundreds of thousands they have kept from going hungry. APC’s focus on resolving conflict and preventing impact did not translate into dramatically quantifiable results.
Across the room stood Bob Tally, Corporate Foundation President at Plenotex, one of the larger multinational corporations. I had been inundating Tally with proposals and statistics for months. Headed in his direction, I was determined to get a commitment out of him, or at least make him feel guilty.
He was flanked by two women with empty looks in their eyes and thousand dollar smiles. I recognized one of the women from a video billboard advertising Nestlé ginger chocolate. The graphic advertisement, alluding to a strong connection between cocoa and sex, had played over and over in an obscene thirty second loop, off the main highway leading out of Geneva.
Tally must have just finished the punch line of a joke because as I approached, all three of them roared with laughter. This is my chance. I looked Tally in the eyes, smiled and stuck out my hand. As I was about to say my well-rehearsed “Good evening Mr. Tally,” he wrapped his arms around the two women, turned and walked away. I stood there with my arm extended, looking like an eighties break-dancer doing “the robot”. Strike one.
I grabbed a glass of champagne and headed for the far wall where I could have a full view of the room. Scanning the crowd, I noticed Claire Patterson, a Senior Program Manager at the Carver Foundation. She was headed my way.
“Ms. Patterson,” I yelled as she walked past me.
“Can I help you?”
“I’m Remi Austin, from APC.” She gave me a blank stare. “The African Peace Collaborative,” I continued. “I sent you a proposal a couple weeks ago about our conflict resolution program in the Democratic Republic of Congo.”
“My assistant may have mentioned something.” She was waiting for more.
“In the DRC we’re bringing together technology, business development, and mediation in really innovative ways to reduce conflict.”
“Conflict resolution. Okay. What is the impact?” she asked.
“The impact?”
“Yes, the impact. What impact do you have on the people?” She looked around the room.
“Our mission is to track, mediate and prevent conflicts. We prevent impact,” I said.
“Where do I put that in my annual report? Who’s in the photo? What’s the caption?”
I had no response. I stared at her, then blinked and swallowed.
“Good luck,” she said without an ounce of sincerity. Strike two.
The room closed in on me as I looked around for an escape. Through a doorway at the far end I spotted an empty courtyard and made a beeline for it. My shoes tapped against the cobblestone as I made my way past a large water fountain with flowers neatly arranged around the perimeter. I stood wrapped in the shadow at the far end of the courtyard, considering my position. Since I had joined APC a year ago as an associate fundraiser, I had not secured a single dollar, euro or yen. Now, the San Francisco office was in danger of being closed. My mother’s dream of peace on earth was slipping away.
Through teary eyes, I spotted Kat headed in my direction, lighting a cigarette as she walked. She wore a floor-length, strapless red silk gown, and she was balanced on shoes with toothpicks for heels. Her long black hair swung from side to side, balancing out her movement. Her thin angular face was stretched into an expansive smile. She looked amazingly at ease considering that her dress threatened to fall in a pool around her feet at any moment.
“Salut, Remi,” she greeted me with a hint of a French accent.
“Salut, Kat,” I said giving her a limp hug. “What are you doing out here?”
“Enjoying a fag,” she inhaled. The smoke drifted towards me. I mimicked her inhale, addicted to the now familiar scent of Gauloises. She eased into the smokers pose: left arm hugging the stomach, right elbow resting against left wrist. The fingers of her right hand were pressed against her lips adding support to the slender white cylinder. She sucked on the cigarette with a delicious desperation. At that moment I wanted nothing more than one of my own.
“I understand that all of this is a swindle,” said Kat, waving her cigarette around.
“How’s that?”
“I just met a distant Sainte Germaine cousin who told me that the family were originally poor pig farmers. Late in the thirteenth century, a wealthy Duke came to their town seeking refuge. He had amassed a small fortune, stealing from farmers in the countryside. After a few days of Sainte Germaine hospitality, the Duke and his entourage died under very suspicious circumstances. The eldest son, a priest, decided to keep all the money for the church.” She put that last part in quotes. “Well, churches were big money-makers back then. The son went on to open several other churches, the first instance of a franchise in Switzerland, you could say.” Kat finished the story with a knowing nod and a dramatic grimace. I marveled at how the French manage to look so young when they’re always making exaggerated facial expressions.
“So you’re saying their ancestors were basically thieves and possibly killers?” I asked.
“Well, they’re all bankers now, but they still take people’s money for a living,” Kat said as she looked around the courtyard. “Come on. Let’s explore.” She stubbed out her cigarette on the centuries old cobblestone. We walked towards the rear of the chateau and around a few trees that had been determined enough to grow through the small spaces in the cobblestone.
The first room we walked into was lit by dozens of tiny polished metal light fixtures that snaked along the high stone walls. Parts of the floor were smooth and polished stone. Other parts were jagged and rough, which made me think the room had been cut right out of the rock floor of the island.
The next room had glass columns supporting the ancient stone ceilings. I looked up and murmured, “I wonder if this is structurally safe.“
“Don’t worry,” Kat reassured me. “This family has billions of Euros. I bet this is one of the safest places in Switzerland.”
Everywhere there were signs of a high tech metal and glass skin having been grafted onto an ancient stone skeleton. But, there didn’t seem to be any flesh in between. The chateau had the cold impersonal feel of a museum. We continued exploring, up and down various stairways and through narrow dark hallways. I sensed we were going in a circle around the courtyard.
“I think we should go back to the party,” I said as I slowed to a stop.
“This is fun! Besides, I’ve already gotten every Euro we’re going to get out of that crowd. A one hundred thousand dollar commitment from that tight wad Bob Tally.”
“One hundred thousand dollars!” I exclaimed, jealous but mostly impressed.
“I had to surgically removed those two dolls from his body, but after that, pas de problem.”
“That’s great news but you know it’s not enough to keep the San Francisco office open. Carla said that if we don’t raise one million tonight, the office will be shut down at the end of the month and we’ll have to cut back substantially on programs.”
“I know, but we’ve done everything that we can. It’s not the end of the world. There’s still the New York office.”
Sure, Kat had done everything that she could. She had been keeping the organization barely above water over the last two years with her fundraising successes. I bet the New York office would hire her in a second. But I was a different story.
“You know I haven’t raised a cent since I started last year. The only reason Carla keeps me around is because my last name is Austin.”
“That’s not true. You have a lot of potential. You just need to realize it.”
“I can’t stand to see another piece of my mother float away. I won’t let the San Francisco office close.”
“That’s about as passionate as I’ve seen you. Well then, let’s go back to the party and press some flesh as they say.” Kat is eternally optimistic. It wasn’t contagious.
“I need a minute to psych myself up.” I feigned a smile. “You go back. I’ll come find you and we’ll coordinate a strategy.” I knew that’s what she wanted to hear.
“Excellent. Meanwhile, I’ll get another drink.” Kat headed back in the direction we came from.
I contemplated crying for a few moments, but decided that a red-eyed plea would decrease my chances of convincing someone to fund us. I headed in the direction where I last saw Kat only to end up at a fork in the hallway. One way led down one of the chateau’s many narrow passageways. The other led to an ancient rock stairway where the steps were so worn from centuries of use that they sloped in the middle. The stairway felt familiar but I could not remember whether this was the same one we’d come down a few minutes before.
I called out to Kat.
No response. I walked up the stairs to find an open door to an unexplored room. A single desk lamp cast a shadow across what appeared to be an office. A large wooden desk took up much of the right side of the room. Three of the walls were covered with bookshelves. From the fourth hung a Gauguin I recognized from my Post-Impressionism Art class in college. A fireplace expanded across the wall below the painting and a couch sat to my left. I could not prevent the tears as I considered my current situation.
If Mama were still alive, she would have been very disappointed in me. Although she had always wanted me to follow in her footsteps in international development, French Lit was my first love. My chosen field was the only area where I openly defied my mother, but that defiance crumbled when she was killed. A year or so away from completing a PhD studying Proust’s use of the series, I knew what I had to do when I got the news: put down my pen and pick up her sword. But I was a complete failure at fighting her battle.
Through thick tears, I saw that the fire was dying out in the fireplace.
After a few noisy sniffs, I looked around the room and noticed a series of books on top of the fireplace. I rose to take a closer look, open to distraction. My hand touched Baudelaire and Molière, stopping on what looked like an early edition of Sartre’s ‘Huis Clos,’ my favorite book from high school. As I ran my index finger over the spine of the book, the entire fireplace slid to my left. I took two steps backwards towards the door.
I peered through the opening, thinking that I would rather go into that unknown hole in the wall than go back to the party and be confronted with my failure. As I stepped through the passageway the new room was bathed in light, as if set off by a motion detector. That’s when I noticed the display cases.
I gasped as I rotated, taking in my surroundings. Everywhere there were diamonds as big as dice. Rubies and sapphires sat in intricate settings next to what appeared to be a crown sprinkled with emeralds. The jewelry sparkled in the bright halogen light, exposed to the air. Unlike a museum or store, this was a private collection, designed for touching. But, I bet very few people had even seen these pieces as they lay there, increasing in value.
The simplest one of all caught my eye. At the end of a gold chain hung the largest diamond I had ever seen. I never intended to keep it, but the necklace had a plan of its own. It begged to stay with me. I had failed my mother in life. I wouldn’t fail her in death. Somehow, the necklace would help me keep the San Francisco office open, and Mama’s dream alive.
That’s how I ended up speeding through the Lausanne hills with a stolen diamond stuck between my sweaty breasts. I don’t remember a single house, car or intersection from that drive. The car must have steered itself back to the hotel. I remember crawling onto the bed, still wearing my sensible shoes, the necklace tucked in the bosom of my dress, thinking I would figure out what to do in the morning, if they didn’t come for me during the night.