"We really stepped in it. What are the chances that roses would make her cry?" I whispered to Tucker as we rode the elevator to visit the Momberg family on the seventh floor.
He nodded and glanced at our reflection in the fingerprint-smudged steel doors. "Bad luck. You never know what triggers anyone, especially right after a death."
"It's crazy that both their parents died 'suddenly.'"
Tucker gave a lopsided smile. "My friends tell me lots of wild stories about South Africa."
"But poor Mr. Becker died in Egypt." I swung the bouquet for punctuation, yanking the roses back before they touched the elevator walls.
"Bad things can happen anywhere. You know that better than anyone."
"Totally. If people saw me at St. Joe's, they'd call Canada the world murder capital."
"That's my girl. Killer karma." Tucker tilted his head. "That's just you, though. South Africa's like its own murder ball."
I nodded. "I guess that's what happens when you build your economy on slavery and apartheid. Thank God Nelson Mandela somehow became president."
The elevator binged in agreement. We trotted down the corridor toward the Mombergs' room while Tucker scrolled through his phone and offered South African statistics.
"Fifty-eight murders per day. Rising steadily since 2011. I guess the only upside is that there are fewer sexual assaults than from 2009 to 2015."
"Good."
"Oh, wait. Sexual assaults are on the upswing for the past three years."
"Ugh. Sounds like a war zone." I felt like plugging my ears and chanting la-la-la. I sniffed the roses to make me feel better.
"Not as bad as real war zones like Syria, Afghanistan, or Yemen—unless you cone down to specific townships like Philippi East in Cape Town. Then it's worse." Tucker clicked off his phone and dropped it in his pocket, grabbing my free hand.
"The Beckers don't look like they're from a rough township, but I guess they could be." I held up the wilted roses. "Um, you think the gift shop will give us our money back?"
Tucker snorted. "Are you kidding? You keep 'em."
"I don't need them."
"Hope! You're so cheap. Just take the roses. When we're rich, I'll shower you in roses."
I shook my head. "Roses take pesticides and growing space and water that could be used on food, not to mention the carbon footprint of flying them around the world."
He sighed. "You're right. Total buzz kill, though. Well, let's see if the Mombergs want them."
"Sure. Let's do it."
"Ho ho ho." Tucker grinned at me, and I scanned the corridor to make sure we weren't offending anyone.
A tired-looking woman in blue scrubs and no head scarf padded past us in her running shoes, dinner in hand. I thought I could smell chicken and rice, and my stomach gurgled, even though I haven't eaten meat in two months.
"I'll take you out for supper afterward. I know the perfect place. One of my buddies recommended it." He knocked on the door of room 7604. "Mr. and Mrs. Momberg?"
"Frederik and Noeline, please. Oh! You brought us roses?" Noeline's plump, bruised face, with a nasty cut on her right cheek and a few more superficial lacerations, softened as I presented her with the bouquet. She inhaled the roses' scent. 'They remind me of home. Thank you."
"It's nothing."
Their son Jaco watched with wide eyes as I shifted from foot to foot, embarrassed at the second-hand flowers. The entire family seemed to be wearing the same clothes as yesterday
The little girl, Fleur, tugged at the mom's pants, dislodging them. "Mommy okay?"
Noeline grabbed her waistband and hiked it back up above her hips before her underpants showed. "Yes, fine, of course, no problem."
Their lacerations and fatigue and Fleur's tangled hair begged to differ. I gazed past them to see Tucker shaking hands with the dad, Frederik, who sat on the side of the bed with his right eye bandaged up.
Frederik bowed his head and said, "Thank you."
"The flowers were nothing," I said, determined to change the subject.
Noeline raised her face from them. "Oh, do you know the history of roses in South Africa?"
That's one subject that has never come up in my life, but Tucker grinned. "Please tell us."
She awarded him a tremulous smile. "We consider roses one of South Africa's first settlers. Jan van Riebeeck brought rose trees from Holland and grew the first Dutch rose on November first, 1659."
Ouch. I'm sure many people lived in that territory before 1659. And I wondered how roses had affected South Africa's ecosystem, considering the "settlers'" brutal treatment of human beings.
"Ah," I said. I'd better not bring up politics when her husband could lose an eye.
Frederik raised his hand. "They don't want to hear about this, Noeline."
"Oh, we don't mind." Tucker grinned at her. "South Africa is quite famous for its roses. Isn't one of them named after Nelson Mandela?"
The little boy, Jaco, giggled and clapped his hand over his mouth before Frederik frowned at him. "It's very kind of you to stop by with flowers, but have you heard anything about my eye?"
Tucker sobered immediately. "I haven't had a chance to speak to anyone, but with your permission, I could do so."
"I give you permission. I don't care what I have to sign. I want some answers. And if you don't get any of those, I'm going straight home." He mumbled to himself in Afrikaans in such an ominous tone that his wife gasped and I glanced at the children, who watched their father, wide-eyed, as he added something about Phillip Becker.
Noeline placed a hand on her husband's, trying to calm him. "We're so sorry to hear Mr. Becker has passed. We heard his son flew up. I'm glad the brother and sister are together now. Very sad."
"Very sad. Just goes to show, you never know what's going to happen," said Tucker.
The little girl bounced up and down on her toes between her parents while Noeline filled a cardboard urinal with water to use as a makeshift vase.
"Imagine a mine owner getting hit by an IED in Egypt." Frederik laughed a little too loud.
I stared at him while the children smiled uncertainly.
Noeline turned around with a fake smile. "You'll have to excuse my husband. Sometimes he speaks without thinking."
"Did you get to know the Beckers on tour?" I asked.
She shook her head. "Not very much. They upgraded their hotels and would only join us for certain excursions."
"I wonder why they paid for the tour at all," said Frederik, beginning to pace. He obviously felt trapped in the small room with one cramped bathroom and one dirty window.
"Why? I heard him say it was safer in a group. Less of a target that way," said Noeline. "I used to talk to Gizelda a little. She liked the children. She missed her nieces and nephews."
"She's all right," said Frederik, smoothing Fleur's hair and sticking out his tongue to make her laugh.
"Did you talk to Mr. Becker, too?" I asked.
Noeline blushed and shook her head, the roses still in one hand.
"I offered him a beer once," said Frederik. "Turned me down flat. Said he had too much work to do. Work? An old man like him? He's on vacation. And what kind of work does he do, anyway? I know mine owners. They sit on their money."
"I'm sure they work very hard," Noeline insisted as Jaco absorbed every word. Meanwhile, Fleur spun in circles, watching her bloodied skirt flare with every turn.
"Yeah, what the hell. He's gone now, anyway." Frederik picked up his son and tossed him a few inches in the air, making him laugh before he caught him again.
"My turn! My turn!" Fleur bounced up and down on her toes.
"Did you know the Beckers from before, in South Africa?" I said.
Frederik bellowed with laughter. "You hear what I said? The Becker family owns the Sacco Manganese Mines. You know how much money that is? You think they hang around with a truck driver and his family in Durban?"
"They came on tour with you," I said.
Frederik gave Fleur one, two, three tosses. He raised his voice over her giggles. "Hardly. Didn't eat any of the meals. Only came with us for the museum tours, and even then, they were gone half the time."
Jaco tugged on his father's belt loop, and Frederik set his daughter down so he could heft Jaco in the air once more. "Oof, you're getting heavy, boy."
"No, I'm not!"
"Two more. One, two!" Frederik set his son down and said, "Phillip had 'private meetings' scheduled everywhere around the city and all the museum men in his pocket. I tell you, they should have gotten a refund. The most time they spent with us was that bus ride, and look what happened."
"Frederik." This time, Noeline added something in Afrikaans.
"I'm sorry," Frederik told us, running his hand through his sweaty, receding hairline. "I shouldn't say such things. The man is dead. Sometimes I speak before I think." He bared his teeth at his children. "Don't be an old fool like your father, hey?"
Fleur laughed and pretended to snarl back at him, while Jaco looked puzzled. He could probably feel the strange undercurrents in the room.
"Did Mr. Becker ever talk about Kruger?" I asked Noeline.
"The park?" she asked, startled.
"I don't know," I admitted. "When Mr. Becker was hurt, he mentioned the word Kruger, but he was speaking in Afrikaans."
"Oh, goodness. We've brought the children to Kruger several times, and we've talked to them about how terrible it is to poach the rhino horns, but I didn't mention that to Gizelda, no."
"What did you talk about?"
She shrugged. "She asked me about the children and if I needed any help. They can be a handful. She was busy with her own father, though."
"What did she have to do for him?" Tucker asked. "Was he physically weak?"
Frederik snorted. "The man seemed all right to me. It wasn't like he couldn't order his own food and complain if the coffee wasn't hot enough."
"He had a cane, and she made sure to keep track of their bags and their personal items," said Noeline, with a warning look at Frederik. "He was always talking to her, asking her to take notes, that sort of thing."
"Take notes. About what?" I said. I couldn't imagine my father dictating at me.
"Sometimes it sounded like mine business. Usually he talked about Egyptian history. He seemed quite taken with Osiris and Horus. I don't know. These two keep me very busy." She winked at her children.
"Yes, it was mainly that kind of historical nonsense," said Frederik. "Every other sentence, he'd say to his daughter, 'Remember that!' Or 'Mark that down!' So she did. I've worked with people like that. Easier to write it all down than to brush them off."
Man, I needed access to those notes. I'd memorize them right after quizzing her about the cobra fanny pack. Tucker and I exchanged a glance, and I knew his brain had latched back onto the Kruger millions. As my grade eight teacher used to joke, Great minds think alike—and small minds seldom differ.
"Did she take notes on paper, or on her phone?" I asked.
"She had a little red book!" Fleur burst out. "It was so pretty. I wanted to draw in it, remember, Ma?"
Noeline laughed. "Yes, but we don't touch other people's things, right, sweetie?"
"I do!" said Jaco, while Fleur pouted and the adults laughed.
Tucker smiled at the Mombergs. "I'm tempted to do the same myself. Did you happen to notice the black leather bag around his waist? The one with a cobra on it?"
Frederik shrugged. "I may have seen it. What about it?"
"It's an unusual bag. I wonder what was inside it?" Tucker's pale cheeks reddened while both of us pretended not to notice. Act normal, and maybe you'll look normal.
Frederik shrugged again. "He probably had his passport and money in it, the way all of us do."
Noeline nodded in agreement.
"You saw him taking his passport out of the cobra bag?" I asked.
Frederik shook his head. "I'm not looking at Phillip Becker."
Noeline said, "We're too busy with our little ones."
Neither of them met our gaze. I could tell from Tucker's stillness that he noticed, too.
Someone else on the bus might have seen what Mr. Becker kept inside that cobra bag. I had the number for the tour guide with the turban, Muhamed. I itched to call him.
"Well," said Noeline, in a falsely bright voice, "it must be a long day for you too."
I started to wish them a good night, but Jaco piped up. "I can tell you."
I peered at the little boy. "You know what's inside the bag?"
He shook his head. "No. I wanted to look inside, though. Because the cobra was so scary!"
"So you opened it when he wasn't looking?" I prompted him the same way I ask patients about cigarette and alcohol use: anticipating a "bad" answer so they don't have to feel as guilty admitting it.
He shook his head again, gravely. "He never opened it. He had a—" He spoke to his mother, who interpreted.
Noeline wiped chocolate off Fleur's mouth as she answered. "Mr. Becker kept his money and passport in a pouch around his thigh. Yes, now that you mention it, Jaco, I remember him using that. That's far more likely for a South African, by the way. I thought it was strange that he'd carry anything valuable in that waist pouch, where it would attract a thief's attention. My countrymen know to be more careful than that."
But why would Phillip Becker carry a fanny pack around his waist and never open it? And why was it so important that his daughter got rid of it right after he died?
I pasted a smile on my face. "You've given us lots to think about. Thanks so much for your patience."
"You must be exhausted," Noeline agreed, immediately seeing us to the door in a way that meant she wanted us out of there, roses or no roses. "You've been so kind to us. I'd like to give you something."
"No need," Tucker assured her.
"We don't have a lot. Not like some," she said, clearly meaning the Beckers. She glanced down at her children and brightened. "I know. We bought little keepsakes to give to our friends when we go home. I'd like to give you this." She unclasped her necklace and detached a small silver symbol, ☥. The cross with a loop on top. The same type I'd seen around Gizelda Becker's neck after the IED, but Noeline's ankh was much smaller and diamond-free. Now that I thought about it, my dad had once bought me ankh earrings.
I shook my head. "No, thank you. We don't need anything. We didn't do much for you."
"Speak for yourself," Tucker whispered behind me, to make me laugh, and it almost worked. My lips quirked.
"It's very small," said Noeline. "It wouldn't even cost five dollars in your currency. But you know the ankh, right? It means life. I think that's very appropriate for you and your boyfriend, as doctors. I'd like you to have it and to pray for my husband's eye."
I felt like she'd socked me in the stomach. "I'm sorry. I can send good wishes, but I'm not religious."
"Take it anyway. Please. And I'd like to share the roses with you, too. I consider them a bond between us. I want to believe that Frederik will see again."
Yikes. No way to turn her down now. "I want to believe that, too."
"Then it's settled." She sent us on our way with the ankh and four roses. "One for each of you, and two more to grow on." She winked in a way that included her two children, implying that Tucker and I would procreate soon.
I ended up red-faced, holding the ankh and the roses, and secretly wishing I could tell her that four is a bad luck number in Chinese.