Stephen Shooster Chapter Ten Chaos
Where do I want to go? I regained the most important thing in life: Free will, free- dom, yet in my extended depravity, the thought never crossed my mind. I had nowhere to go. There was only one place I wanted to be -- home. I told him. I knew this was not the answer he expected, so I followed with, “Grybov.” He understood, “OK, you will need to go to the Vistula Bridge, here in Krakow, and from there, the military police will take you toward your home.” On the 2nd or 3rd of February 1945, I arrived in Grybov, courtesy of a Russian transport. As soon as I arrived, I made my way directly to my neighbor’s home, Tadeusz Skrabski’s. The compass in my head was set to my father’s last wish. When his family saw me, they started to jump for joy. I hugged his daughters, Janka and Jadwiga. Then, I held Tadeusz like I would my father, holding back the tears that I could not produce. He was elated to see me too, “Leon, I knew if anybody could survive, it would be you!” Once past the formalities of knowing I was alive, I began to take a more detailed assessment of the surroundings, picking up on things that had changed. First, I no- ticed that his hand seemed to have healed. Then, I glanced over at my old home and sawhorses in the yard and my brother and sisters playing, while a rooster was looking on as he perched on a fence surrounded by hens, all pecking the ground. Oddly, the small garden near the well was overgrown. My mother would never have allowed that. I must have been in a stupor. But I saw smoke coming from my chimney and noticed the fireplace was in use. Was my mother waiting for me? Tadeusz saw what was happening. Realizing I was both here and there, in a kind of trance, he held me back. All I had been through flooded back into my mind, allowing me to comprehend that my family was gone. Yet, there was a horse and even a carriage in my yard, and I had never seen either of them before. Peering more carefully, I real- ized those kids were not my brother and sisters. What were they doing at my house? I became incensed. Tadeusz could not hold me back any longer. I tore away from him and stormed open the door of my old home. I was not happy with what I found; it was occupied, but not by my family. “Who are you?” I asked. “Who gave you permission to move into my house?” The answers were not forthcoming. It took no more than a few moments to realize this must have been a collaborator. I did not wait for any answers. Instead, I told him forcefully, “Get out of here. Get
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