How it will come back to haunt you

They're calling from an overseas consulate. Are you so-and-so? Me: Is it possible, they ask, to invite your priest? No, I say, you can’t... for two years now. Sorry, I sympathize, but what about your grandfather...

Here we need to digress and explain who we are and where we come from. Our surname is Bialystoksky, natives, therefore, of Bialystok. This city is in Eastern Poland - Bialystok.

With the outbreak of the First World War, we were evacuated from the front line so as not to spy for the Germans. The richer one, of course, shied away, and the older brother, the formerly successful “sea wolf” Wolf Belostotsky, remained at the furniture factory, and the younger one - my grandfather - ended up in Russia. And he became a highly qualified auto mechanic. He served in a secret military garage. As a civilian, he did not join the party, but he stopped dangerous correspondence with foreign relatives ahead of time.

And they grew rich and prospered, and now the granddaughter of the elder Belostotsky, the sea Wolf, found me, the youngest grandson, through the consulate.

For complete clarity, we involve the daughter as an interpreter. And the girl states: the Germans occupied Bialystok on our Jewish New Year - Rosh Hashanah, in September thirty-nine. A month later they were replaced by the Russians. And on Christian Christmas, my grandfather came and brought the quartermaster’s convoy with uniforms and food. He stopped by for twenty minutes, but managed to instruct his older brother.

Voluntarily nationalize the factory. The property is for use as a shelter or hospital. Send gold and currency there if possible.

- Abgemacht! - the elder brother, the wanderer of the seas, was offended. - Already done, the year before last!
- Hohom! - said the younger one. - You should have unkloifen yourself! (Sage! - I translate for my daughter. - We should have run away ourselves!)
Sea Wolf just threw up his hands.
“Stock yourself with a craft stock for the journey,” the younger brother instructed, “threads, thimbles... a glass diamond...
“Bekitser,” said the elder (in short, I translated), “trinkets for savages?” Are we heading to Siberia?
“In der velt arain,” the younger one clarified (to the point of confusion, I translate for my daughter).
Saying goodbye, the younger one provided the older one with the address. Just, God forbid, don’t write it down, but remember: Moscow, Taganka, Bolshie Kamenschiki Street.

It was on Taganka that they tracked me half a century later. And back in my grandfather’s time, an envelope landed. Bypassing the post office, I flew out of hell with the help of good people and with the assistance of scarce threads, or a set of sewing needles, or crochet hooks. And our cautious grandfather, cautiously and half-secretly, then visited his relatives.
- Without him we were finished! (If it weren’t for him,” my daughter translated, “we’d ​​be screwed!”

After the Victory, as pre-war Polish citizens, they safely repatriated and, without laying claim to the lost property, moved again in der velt arain ("across the wide world", into the world of tartarar), where they launched furniture production with all their might.
- And what about your Grandfather? (What about your grandfather? - my daughter translated.)

Our grandfather, I say, died in '41: he drove the quartermaster's trucks near Mozhaisk. They were scrambling around or fighting surrounded. The trucks ended up in a swamp. Drivers looked around, bent by the rain. The slurry slurped and choked. The grandfather in the car was plunging into the open abysses before his eyes. The drivers broke their poles and wandered east.

But my grandfather was financially responsible - he was responsible for the cargo and cars. He remained sitting in the cabin, wrapped in a raincoat, with a canvas hood pulled down.
- Why weren’t the vehicles liquidated? - the special officer asked the drivers. (FBI agent, - my daughter translated. - FBI agent.) The drivers cited the autumn flood, the lack of fuel and ammunition - neither set it on fire nor explode. And why? Damn it, the quagmire will drag on.
“Damn it,” said the special officer, “the articles are different.”

Some of the drivers received a penalty, some received a prison term, and some returned to the motor depot. It was written about the grandfather that he remained in the territory occupied by the enemy with the intention of surrendering and handing over accountable material assets to the enemy.

My father, my grandfather's son, spent his whole life trying to remove that stigma.
- But it’s clear! - exclaimed the guest (translated by my daughter). - He sat in the cockpit, like a captain standing on the bridge. The radio operator calls out SOS, and the captain is on the bridge. My grandfather Wolf said...

My father did not prove anything - he died, having received another, very polite and benevolent general’s resolution.
“I want to invite you... (I came to invite you,” my daughter translated. “Do you want it for a visit, do you want it for good, for permanent residence.”)
Oh, I say, thank you. I don’t care, and at the very least, I’ve mastered the language.
- And you?
- And I... - The daughter laughed. - I will think.