Since they couldn’t simply deliver the whole care package to Lulu, they had to decide what was most urgent

The coat had arrived first, a few days before Yonatan’s wedding. A designer wool coat, in understated black.

“We should cut these buttons off, the ones here at the top,” Raizele suggested. “They’re too shiny, they’re a dead giveaway that it’s a new coat.”

Racheli thought differently. “It would be shame to tear them off. Let’s see if we can just make them look a little duller. Do you have some steel wool? That should take care of it.”

Raizele brought a tuft of steel wool from the kitchen and handed it to her sister. Racheli attacked the buttons enthusiastically.

“Give the zipper a once-over, too,” said Raizele. “Scratch it up a little.”

“Be careful not to break it, though,” Yanky cautioned his wife. “He already has one coat with a broken zipper.”

“I hate to spoil such a good coat,” Raizele murmured, not very sadly. “It must have cost $700.”

“Eight hundred. Pounds sterling, not dollars,” said Yanky with a smile. “Yonatan told me. When he told his father to send over a coat, this is what Mr. Eliav assumed he meant.”

Raizele looked at the £800 coat appraisingly. “Okay, the buttons and zipper look old enough now. Now we have to do something about the coat itself.”

“The simplest way would be to put it through a hot water cycle in the washing machine,” Racheli mused.

“We could dip it in bleach, too, and then it would get some horrible pink streaks,” said Raizele. “But we’re not trying to ruin it completely. We just want it to look old, like something you would find in a pile of rags on the street.”

Yanky left the house while the women were still deliberating about how to achieve the desired effect. When he came home for supper, the perfect coat for Lulu was ready and waiting: a bit matted, missing one button, with a few faint stains along the right lapel. Good work!

That night, he and Nochumku stole toward Rechov Shmuel Hanavi. A bit of detective work via Bugi had yielded the intelligence that Lulu should be coming home to his borrowed apartment in just a few minutes. They wanted no more than a few minutes leeway, so no one else would come along and claim the prize before him. First they piled up a heap of bona fide shmattehs near the dumpster beside the entrance to the building. A woman who ran a local clothing gemach had been happy to give them the rejects she’d weeded out from the bags of usable donations. At the top of the pile they placed the coat, rumpling it among the rags so it wouldn’t stick out too obviously. Happy with the effect, the brothers swiftly crossed the street and slipped into the shadows, behind the pillars of the nearest apartment building.

When they heard heavy footsteps, accompanied by the squeaky wheels of the battered, gray baby stroller, they peeked out cautiously. Lulu stopped at the rag pile. He picked up a few items and examined them by the light of the streetlamp. And then his eyes lit up — he’d spotted the coat. He picked it up and smiled to himself. Folding it haphazardly, he added it to the pile on the stroller and went into his temporary home.

The very next day, at Zichron Moishe, Yanky saw Lulu wearing the new coat instead of the threadbare army jacket barely held together with paper clips. He wondered whether to compliment Lulu on it or say nothing, but Lulu solved the dilemma by coming over to him.

“Did you see my new coat?”

“Sure, I did. How could I not notice?” Yanky replied heartily. “It looks good and warm, huh?”

“Yeah. It’s a good coat, a designer piece.” Lulu was glowing. “You see? G-d sends me everything I need.”

You need a warm hat, too, Yanky noted, instead of that stale pancake you’ve had on your head for the last ten years or so. A pair of good, thick gloves wouldn’t hurt, either, and a few pairs of thermal socks. And a scarf.