Zoo Station: The Story of Christiane F. (43 page)

So I told the cop, “Sorry, never mind. It was a false alarm. You don't need to come after all.” Then I hung up.

Detlef lay on his back with his eyes wide open. Piko asked if I'd said something about drugs on the phone, and if I'd given them the address. I said, “No, not directly. I don't think they could really take everything in that fast.”

Piko called me a hysterical bitch. He was frantic, slapping Detlef in the face and forcing him to stand up immediately. I told him he should leave Detlef alone for a while. Then he screamed, “Shut up and get me some water, you stupid fucking cow!” When I came back, Detlef was upright and Piko was berating him. I was so relieved to see Detlef conscious again that all I wanted to do was go and hug him, but Detlef literally shoved me away. Piko splashed some water in his face and said, “Come on, boy, we've got to go.”

Detlef still looked pale as a ghost, and he could barely stay upright. I told him he should lie down again. “Shut up!” Piko screamed at me. Detlef agreed that he didn't have time. And then they left the apartment together, with Piko acting as Detlef's support.

I was having a hard time coming to grips with what had happened. I was shaking like crazy. After all, for a second I was convinced that Detlef had died. I lay down on the bed and tried to concentrate on my thriller. Then the doorbell rang. I peered through the peephole. It was the cops.

I don't know what I was thinking, but instead of hightailing it out the window, I just went and opened the door. I admitted that yes, it was me who had called. I told them that the apartment belonged to a gay guy who was on vacation. And this morning two young guys came by and injected something into their arms. One of them had keeled over afterward and that's when I'd called the police.

The cops wanted me to give them names and descriptions, and I managed to come up with something for them. They took down my personal information and called it in. It didn't take long for a reply to come back. One of the cops said, “Well, why don't you come along then? You've been reported as missing.”

The cops were pretty nice though. They waited for me to put two of my books into a bag, and then they gave me time to write a note to Detlef. “Dear Detlef,” I wrote, “you can probably guess that I've been picked up. More news soon. Lots of love, Christiane.” I taped the note to the front door with some Scotch tape.

First they took me to the Friedrichstrasse police station and then to a holding cell. It was like something straight out of an American Western. Seriously, it even had iron bars instead of walls. When they locked me up, the iron door clanged into the lock with the same sound that I recognized from movies about Dodge City and Deadwood. And when they turned the key, it even made that famous creaky, grinding noise. There I stood, hands wrapped around the bars, utterly defeated. I couldn't even bear to take stock of how depressing it all was, so instead I just lay down on the cot and fell asleep. (At that point I was also still pretty doped up.) Later on, they brought me a little plastic container for my urine sample and a backup bucket to put below, so that I wouldn't pee on the floor. Anyone walking by would have been able to watch me pee. I got nothing to eat or drink for the entire day.

My mom came by around nightfall. She walked right past my cell without really looking at me. I guess she had to clear something up with the cops first. When they did finally unlock the door for her to get me, my mom just said, “Good evening,” as if I was a stranger. Then she grabbed me firmly by the arm and pulled me away with her. Klaus was outside, waiting for us in the
car. My mom shoved me into the middle seat and sat down beside me. Nobody said anything. Klaus got lost on the way back, and we wound up driving all over Berlin. It seemed like we would never get home.

When we stopped at a gas station, I told my mom that I was hungry and asked I if she could buy me three Bounty chocolate bars.
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She said okay, and got out to buy them.

After the second Bounty, I got sick. Klaus had to stop the car so that I could throw up. We started heading northbound on the autobahn, and that's when I realized that we weren't going home at all. Maybe it was going to be another institution or maybe a home, but either way I would break out soon enough. But then I started paying attention to the highway signs, and I realized where they were taking me: the airport. That's just fucking perfect, I thought. Now they want to ship me out of Berlin entirely.

As soon as we got out at the airport, my mom grabbed hold of me again, tightly. Then I spoke for just the second time since our reunion. Very slowly, emphasizing each and every word, I said, “Would you please let go of me?” But she held tight and stayed close by my side. Klaus was trailing behind us, ready to chase me down if need be. At that point, I just kind of resigned myself to whatever they were going to do. In the end, it didn't matter what they tried. There was nothing anyone could do for me. That's how I felt at the time anyway. I did survey my options for escape when I saw the signs for Hamburg, but in the end I was too weak-willed to really do anything.

Hamburg. Jesus. I had a grandmother, an aunt, an uncle, and a cousin who all lived in a small town about thirty miles outside of Hamburg. They were all incredibly dull, sad little people. Very bourgeois. Their house was so neat and tidy, it made me want to barf. You couldn't find a speck of dust, even if you tried. I once walked around that house in bare feet for an entire afternoon, and at night my feet were still so clean that I didn't have to wash them.

On the plane, I pretended to read my book. I got through a few pages. My mom was still playing deaf and dumb. She hadn't even told me where we were going yet.

As the flight attendant rattled off her little speech and got to the part where she said she hoped we'd had a pleasant flight, I noticed that my mom was crying. Then the words poured out of her. Without hardly stopping to take a breath, she told me how she just wanted to do what was best for me. She'd had a dream recently, where I was lying dead in a bathroom stall with blood all over the place and my legs all twisted up. A dealer had killed me, and she had to come identify me.

I'd always believed that my mom had psychic powers. Whenever she had a bad feeling about how the day was going to go, she would tell me to stay home, and when I didn't, then presto!—I'd get tangled up in a raid or get ripped off, or some other disaster would happen. It made me think of Piko, about how, when everything fell apart, Detlef and I had just ripped him off. Maybe my mom was saving my life with this intervention of hers. I didn't think any further than that. I didn't want to. Since my failed suicide attempt, I didn't want to think about much of anything.

After we landed in Hamburg, I went with my mom and my aunt to the airport restaurant. My mom had to take the next flight back. I ordered an orange soda—Florida Boy, my favorite brand—but they didn't have it. I guess they thought they were too good for orange soda here. So I didn't drink anything, although I was dying of thirst.

Together, my mom and my aunt started in on me. In a half hour, they laid out my whole future. I would have to go back to school, I would have to behave well and find new friends, and
then later on I could do some kind of an apprenticeship. And then, once I was done training for a career, I could return to Berlin.

For them, it was simple. My mom was bawling again when we said good-bye. And I had to fight to keep from crying myself. That was on November 13, 1977.

That whole day, I had to make an incredible effort to control myself and pull myself together. On the return flight to Berlin, I broke down and cried until all of the accumulated stress and anxiety had drained out of my system. I was sad and relieved at the same time. Sad because I had to give Christiane away. Relieved because I'd finally gotten her away from heroin.

I was convinced that I'd finally done the right thing. After the failure of the Narc Anon therapy, I realized that Christiane's only chance for survival depended on me taking her to a place where there simply was no heroin. When Christiane was living with her dad, and I had some distance from the whole thing, and some peace and quiet, it became clear as day to me that she'd die if she stayed in Berlin. Although my ex-husband assured me that Christiane had been off heroin since she'd been with him, I didn't put any stock in that. I would've never thought that my fear for Christiane's life could get even worse. But after the death of her friend Babsi, I didn't have even one single minute of peace.

When Babsi died, I wanted to take Christiane to stay with her relatives in Western Germany immediately. But her dad refused to agree to that. Since Christiane had moved in with him, he had obtained a court order for temporary custody. Anything I said was useless. He just didn't understand. Maybe because he hadn't yet experienced what I'd experienced. Maybe because he couldn't admit defeat.

While Christiane was living with her dad, I received the indictment against her. She was supposed to stand trial on account of her offenses against the narcotics law. Mrs. Schipke from the Narcotics Department had already called to give me a heads-up. To comfort me, she said that I shouldn't blame myself for what Christiane was doing. “Anyone who wants to do drugs will do drugs,” she said. “It's ultimately up to them.” She knew lots of addicts who came from good, upstanding families. And they also had to appear in court to deal with charges like these. I shouldn't torture myself about it.

I thought it was really cynical of them to use a little packet of heroin that I had once found in Christiane's room as evidence against her. Mrs. Schipke had innocently asked me to send her that packet for inspection. She had told me not to put my return address on the letter because that way nothing could be proven.

I don't think it's right that young people like Christiane are condemned for their drug use. Christiane never hurt anyone. She only destroyed herself. Who should sit as judge on that? And everyone knows how useless prisons are in curing addiction. The indictment was one more reason for me to send Christiane to West Germany.
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I was determined to get her to safety. I went to the guardianship office and explained the whole situation to them, everything, down to the last detail. For the first time, I felt like someone in some government agency or department was actually listening to me. Mr. Tillmann, the social worker responsible for our case, also thought that Christiane would be better off in Western Germany. He wanted to try to secure a spot for her in a rehab program since it was impossible to predict how soon he could restore custody of Christiane to me. In the mean time, it would be easier to get my ex-husband to agree to enroll Christiane in a rehab program than it would be to get him to agree simply to send her to her relatives in Western Germany. I could sense that Mr. Tillmann was really engaged and interested in helping Christiane and wasn't just making empty promises.

One afternoon shortly after my discussion with Tillmann, Christiane suddenly appeared on my doorstep. She'd just returned from the drug advice center again. She was a complete wreck, pumped full of heroin and talking about suicide and giving herself the “golden shot.” I calmed her down first, then put her to bed. Then I immediately called up Mr. Tillmann. He came by right away. When Christiane awoke, the three of us drew up a solid plan: First, Christiane should do her physical withdrawal in the state's psychiatric hospital. After that, she should get a spot in a therapeutic community home called Bonnie's Ranch. Both the drug counseling center and Mr. Tillmann were in contact with this therapy program on behalf of Christiane.

Christiane was very willing and allowed all of this to be done for her. Mr. Tillmann immediately jumped on making the most urgent necessary arrangements. We got an appointment with the child psychiatrist and the chief doctor at Bonnie's Ranch, who issued the admission papers for Christiane. After that, Mr. Tillmann drove to Christiane's dad's with the admission papers and put the pressure on him until he agreed to let me take Christiane to the hospital.

Two weeks after Christiane was admitted to Bonnie's Ranch, she was transferred to the Rudolf-Virchow Hospital for an operation to treat her infection. I assumed, of course, that a child who was a heroin addict being transferred from Bonnie's Ranch to Rudolf-Virchow Hospital for an operation would be closely supervised and continue to receive appropriate care. But all they did was unload Christiane at the hospital. Whatever happened
after that wasn't their concern. Christiane walked right out of the hospital and made her way back to the streets.

I was incredibly bitter about the sloppy coordination between the therapy program and the hospital, which threatened to undo everything we'd accomplished up to that point.

After that experience, I lost all faith in institutions. I told myself that it was up to me to help my child. Mr. Tillmann tried to give me renewed courage. He was the only one I felt like I could trust.

Luckily, Christiane didn't stay away for long. She came back the next evening to cry her eyes out on my shoulder. She had shot up again, but I didn't get mad at her. I'd lost all aggressive feelings toward her. How many times in the past had I vented all my rage on Christiane out of sheer frustration over not being able to help her? Now that she had come back to me, I just took her into my arms and we had a calm, quiet talk with each other.

Christiane was determined to keep following the plan that we'd set up together with Mr. Tillmann. And I said, “Good, that's what we'll do.” But I also made it absolutely clear to her that if she messed up one more time, she'd have to leave Berlin and go to Western Germany. She really took this to heart and gave me her word that she would stay clean.

During those next few days, she regularly went to the drug counseling center. She really hung on to the hope of a future spot in a drug therapy program. Sometimes she waited for hours for her turn with a drug advisor. At home she sat down and wrote out her résumé because that was one of the admission requirements.