"Bugi said there was no sense in our going without him. He says he knows how Lulu’s mind works much better than we do”

"So does Lulu need our help now?” Yanky asked. “What do you think, Raizele?”

Raizele shrugged. “Who knows? He might have managed on his own, just like he’s been doing all these years. He might have found some abandoned building or an empty cellar and set up camp there.”

“Or…?”

She sighed. “Or he might be wandering around on Sderot Bar Lev in a daze, shivering and getting numb.”

“That sounds terrible.”

“It does,” she acknowledged. “But do you have any way of helping him? Even if you could find him, how would you get there? There are no buses, and I bet the trains will stop running any minute now.”

“I think I’ll ask Yonatan to join the expedition,” Yanky said. “He’s got a good car — an all-terrain type vehicle, it should be able to get through the snow easily. A Nissan… uh, Nissan something or other, I don’t remember.”

Yanky took out his phone and searched for Yonatan Eliav’s number.

Pathfinder? No, that’s an old model. Tzvika used to have one. Yonatan has a much newer model with some funny name… something like kashkaval, but not kashkaval, that’s a cheese…

“Hello?” The impatience in Yonatan’s voice took Yanky aback.

“Yonatan?”

“Yes. Hello, Yanky.”

“Uh, is everything all right? You sound a little tense.”

Yonatan made a split-second decision not to share the news about his father. He wouldn’t want rumors spreading that the great Sandy Eliav was ill. After all, maybe Dad would be back on his feet by tomorrow. “Sorry. I just have a lot on my mind. What’s up over there, Yanky?”

Quickly, Yanky filled him in on the fact that Lulu was last seen wandering around in the snow and that nobody seemed to know if he’d found shelter. Unaccustomed as he was to dealing with double emergencies, Yonatan agreed after a moment’s thought that they’d better form a search party.

“I’ll be there shortly to pick you up,” he said.

He left Sara Baila in charge of booking tickets to London, and ten minutes later, he was outside Yanky’s building.

“We need to stop at the Mamilla Hotel first,” Yanky said as he climbed in, “to pick up Bugi. I didn’t want to bother him in the middle of his vacation, but he said there was no sense in our going without him. He says he knows how Lulu’s mind works much better than we do.”

“I imagine he’s right,” said Yonatan.