I zipped the ankh into a compartment of my own thigh pouch before we finally escaped the hospital in search of food. Tucker urged me into a 20-person lineup outside a small restaurant five blocks away. "Want some shawarma? This one is supposed to be the best."
The smell of grilled meat and deep-fried food evaporated my fatigue and my embarrassment over the roses. "Hell, yeah."
Tucker pointed at the Coca-Cola machine behind the counter. "Everyone on TripTalk recommends the fresh mango juice."
"Awesome. You think they have vegetarian options?" I've avoided meat since our hostage taking on November fourteenth, which I call 14/11.
"I'll ask." Tucker squinted at the menu in Arabic.
"Make sure you order at least three. They are very small, like sliders," said a guy in front of us. He looked our age, late twenties, with a long chin and a New York Yankees baseball cap pulled low on his head.
"I eat ten!" said a rotund fifty-ish woman behind us, patting her belly.
The Yankees guy nodded. "Sometimes I do, too."
I laughed, and for the first time, I felt myself relax. Ten sliders! Bring it home!
"These are the best shawarma in Cairo," the Yankees guy told us.
The woman wouldn't let him outdo her. "Best in Egypt! When my friends visit, I take them straight here. I've been coming here for 26 years. One of them swore she would only ever eat Syrian and Turkish shawarma because they were superior, and now she wishes I could send her one in the mail. And to answer your question about meat, you may have Egyptian roumy cheese or sujuk sausage instead of beef, if you prefer. It will taste as good as your roses are beautiful."
Tucker raised his eyebrows, gazed at my flowers, and back at the woman.
I instantly bestowed the roses upon her.
She burst out laughing. "Oh, you keep them instead of giving them to a nosy, old woman."
"You're not old, and it's a long way back to our hotel," I said. I'd rather award the flowers to a cheerful woman instead of keeping them as a reminder of our 0 for 2 hospital visits.
"Very well, then. You must let me take a picture of you and post it on my Instagram to thank you."
I made a face. "Why don't we just take a picture of you?"
"No, please! I would love to have more young people on my Insta!"
I burst out laughing, and somehow she roped me, Tucker, the Yankees guy, and his friends, plus her and her roses, into a picture. Actually, five pictures, because it was impossible for all of us to look good at the same time.
"There. I am Maryam al-Banhawi, and we are all friends now."
"Maryam," I repeated, because it was easier than al-Banhawi. I only had to remember not to say Miriam by accident. She and Tucker exchanged Instagram handles and followed each other.
Maryam scrolled through his newsfeed. "Ah, yes. Very nice. Such a beautiful young couple, and you're doctors, too. Your family must be so proud!"
"We still have more training to do," I explained, but she waved it away and said, "I would like to treat you to dinner. Whatever you like. It's on the house."
"No, it's okay, Maryam."
"I insist. You give me roses, I buy you dinner. I try to repay generosity with generosity. Do you know the New Testament?"
My smile ossified slightly. "I'm agnostic."
She thumped her own chest. "I'm a good Christian. Did you know that 10 percent of Egyptians are Coptic Christians? 'And he said unto them, Take heed, and beware of covetousness: for a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth.' Luke 12:15."
Now I felt decidedly weird about her generosity. I covet things all the time, especially food. "Uh, Maryam, please—"
Tucker protested in Arabic, and the Yankees guy pleaded our case, but by the time we got to the front of the line and Tucker opened his mouth, she'd already ordered ten beef, three sausage, and seven roumy shawarmas for us. "With one mango juice and one pomegranate juice. And extra spicy pickles!"
When we tried to pay, Maryam literally pushed our cards away with her rose-free hand and berated the clerk into taking her credit card. "You are our guests. Tell your friends how much fun you're having in Egypt, @DrJohnTucker!"
Tucker and I walked into the night, stuffing our faces as tahini and juice dripped down our arms.
"This is fantastic," I raved, between bites.
"Tell me about it," Tucker ground out. Usually he doesn't eat as fast as me, but this time he was matching me shawarma for shawarma.
Maryam had even managed to order different types of buns. Although I've never considered pita bread more than a blank canvas, this one was nice and fresh, and I loved the buttery kaiser buns that contrasted with the sharp tang of roumy cheese.
Every time I needed to wake up my palate, I'd choose either soothing mango juice or the slightly tart pomegranate.
"I have to have more," said Tucker, once we were only left with wrappers. "I could go there for 26 years."
"And bring your friends," I agreed, sucking up the very last of the mango juice.
I thought of our friend Tori Yamamoto, who had made us a card before our flight. She drew a picture of a woman in silhouette on the front, and inside, she wrote, "Night came walking through Egypt swishing her black dress."~Zora Neale Hurston
I swished through the Egyptian night with the man I loved, my tongue full of new flavours, my belly finally full.
I also loved the quote Tori had added on the back, from Naguib Mahfouz, whom she said was an Egyptian writer and the only Arab writer to have won the Nobel Prize. "Fear does not prevent death, it prevents life."
Back at the hotel, I could have hit the bed immediately, my brain reeling with unexpected friendship.
Instead, I took a quick shower with Tucker (heh heh heh), slid my feet into those terry cloth slippers, and set up my laptop at the desk to learn more about Mr. Phillip Becker. Although it was a fairly common name, I was able to narrow him down by his country and a daughter named Gizelda.
Phillip's father, Roelof "Pik" Becker, launched the Sacco Manganese Mines in 1928. I assumed they called him "Pik" after a pickaxe, what with the mining and all, but no. Pik's friends called him pikkewyn, which is Afrikaans for penguin, because Pik liked to wear dark suits or dinner jackets.
I showed Tucker the picture of Pik at a braai, or barbecue, all suited up.
He grinned from the bed, where he sat with his tablet. "Yeah, I saw that Pik was a mining engineer who emigrated to South Africa in 1926. Crazy."
I nodded. "I wonder how much money he made off the Kalahari manganese field?"
"Enough to send Phillip to private school in the KwaZulu-Natal midlands and geology at the University of Witwatersrand." He relished pronouncing the names. Then he patted the bed, encouraging me to crawl next to him.
I did, enjoying the feeling of the sheets against my skin before I curled up next to his warm body and brought up my knees to use as a shelf for my laptop. "Phillip was kind of a jock in his day, eh? Sounds like he was all-star at cricket and hockey back then. They called him the Meerkat."
"Yeah, he was still in good shape even 20 years ago. He won the world championship in squash for his age."
"Hmmm." There's a big difference between 67 and 87, but Phillip Becker sounded like he'd been in relatively excellent shape, aside from emphysema. "Did you see the article on Phillip's mineral collection?"
Tucker's teeth gleamed in the glow from his computer screen. "I've been admiring photos of Tsumeb schneiderhöhnite and a malachite sphere."
"Pretty," I said, although one of the rocks looked like a black yam with green asparagus minerals growing out the top, and the malachite sphere made me think of something an alien might snack on. "Check this out. He owned an 'exceptional, world class collection of minerals from Southern Africa.' He basically had a museum in his basement."
"Right, he built a display for 3400 specimens, some of them viewable from 360 degrees, in a dust-free environment, with professional lighting and ventilation, in 2018." Tucker whistled. "The guy is loaded. I mean, was loaded. Where are you going with this?"
"Well, two things. They say that some of those minerals come from the Kalahari manganese field that Phillip would've accessed through his dad, but they also mention Mozambique, the Congo, Russia, Morocco, China, and Pakistan. Ten to one, he would have hunted for rocks in Egypt."
"Sure. Gizelda or her brother mentioned he'd been here before, right?"
"Yeah." The despair in Gizelda's voice had seared itself into my brain. Oh, God. Why did he make us come back here? "If he was in such good shape, why did he need his daughter? Why sign them up for a tour he barely used?"
"Does seem weird. He could've just gone to the museums he wanted and flown home again instead of waiting for the group schedule."
"Right. I don't know if Egypt has a big mining industry, but it deals a lot in antiquities and collectibles. I bet that even if he wasn't after a stone specifically from Egypt, someone here could have hooked him up. Remember Frederik Momberg said Phillip was friends with all the museum curators?"
Tucker bent over me and licked the upper curve of my ear. "I'll be your friend and curate every part of you."
I squealed. My ears are ticklish. "Hang on." I scrolled up to the first photo. "This is Phillip Becker and his wife Rosetta with that all-star mineral collection. They mention Gizelda and her brother—looks like his real name is Luca. Gizelda's divorced, but Luca and his wife had five children."
Tucker's hands passed over my breasts in a way that made it clear he was more interested in activities that made children than in contemplation of other people's progeny. "What about them?"
"Well—" I grabbed his hands and planted them on his own main event—"you're convinced it's the Kruger millions, but the Beckers have plenty of their own treasure. They were rich. And you know that when someone dies under strange circumstances, you should always follow the money. I know it's an IED. I know we're not following the rules. But somehow, I wonder—"
"I'll follow your money," said Tucker, which made no sense.
I laughed anyway and shoved my laptop on the bedside table, making room for my lap to get topped, completely unaware that in the morning, we'd learn of a dozen more deaths.