Zoo Station: The Story of Christiane F. (24 page)

We also liked to get high and go to the lame clubs that the teenagers and tourists loved. We sat there, totally high, thinking we were just like everybody else. Sometimes we would decide to just stay home for the whole day instead. We'd sit by the window, looking out, and telling each other stories. We'd also try to pick the leaves from these sickly old trees that were growing in front of our house. Detlef would hold onto my legs, and I'd lean way out of the window and see how many I could grab. We made out, ran around, read, and were mostly just kind of silly. Our future was never a serious topic. But every once in a while, I had these pangs of real anxiety. It was almost like a sickness that attacked me whenever a dark reality seemed to intrude on our little fantasy lives. It would happen whenever I had an argument with Detlef. It didn't matter how trivial the fight happened to be—I just couldn't deal with it. I had to push everything serious far away from me, and I was always worried about freaking out about some stupid little thing. Whenever I started to have these feelings of anxiety or insecurity, I'd start to have the hunger again. Because with one shot of heroin, the problem would be gone.

Eventually, we had a real problem. My mom's boyfriend, Klaus, was upset about Detlef. He said that the apartment was too small for a fourth person—especially if that fourth person was a stranger. It was hard for my mom to argue with that, and there wasn't anything I could say to change his mind. It made me feel so powerless. It was just like the time when Klaus ordered me to give up my dog. In a flash, my peaceful, awesome, easy life was over with. I had to go back to school, and Detlef wasn't allowed to sleep over anymore.

Back in school, it felt like I'd never left. It didn't seem like I'd missed anything, anyway—but I'd given up on school a long time ago. I had one new problem though: smoking. When I wasn't on H, I smoked four to five packs a day, chain-smoking one cigarette after another. And now I couldn't even make it through the first class of the day without a smoke. I had to leave and go to the bathroom now. That first morning at school I literally smoked until I threw up. I puked into a wastebasket. I could hardly spend any time in class.

For the first time in weeks, I didn't see Detlef. The next day, after school, I started to get nervous and took the subway over to Zoo Station. There was my Detlef, waiting for his next customer.

It was sickening to see him back at the station, looking out for customers. But Detlef said that he was completely broke. And anyway, he had no idea what else he should do. He was sleeping at Axel and Bernd's again and working the streets at Zoo Station and shooting up again, every day. If I wanted to see Detlef, that's where I needed to be. He was the only person I had. I didn't believe I could live without him. So I went back, too, every day— back to Zoo Station.

On the Sunday when I came across the bloodstains in the bathroom and checked Christiane's arms for track marks, the light bulb finally went on. It felt like someone had kicked me in the stomach. In a way, I guess, it was just time for me to pay the piper. I'd raised Christiane a certain way, and I'd been proud of my parenting skills. But in the end, it was all wrong. I wanted to avoid the mistakes my own dad had made, but I'd made my own mistakes instead.

When Christiane started to go to The Sound, I wasn't exactly happy about it, but her friend Kessi and the other teens from the Center House all seemed to go there pretty regularly. So I told myself, Okay, so why shouldn't Christiane go there too? The kids all raved about The Sound. I thought back on all the harmless things that my dad prohibited when I was a girl, and that was enough for me.

I was still sticking with that permissive style of parenting when Christiane introduced me to her boyfriend Detlef. She'd
met him at The Sound, and he made a really good impression on me. He knew how to be polite, he had good manners, and he just generally seemed like a well-meaning kind of kid. Just a really sweet guy. And I thought it was normal for Christiane at her age, that she would be so head over heels in love. More than anything else, I was just glad that she'd hooked up with a decent guy. I could see that he really cared for Christiane.

If you had told me back then that they were already using heroin, I would've said you were crazy. The fact was, aside from Christiane's crush, I didn't notice anything at all unusual going on with her. On the contrary, she seemed to be calmer and better adjusted after a phase of real defiance. She even seemed to be doing better in school.

After she'd finished with her school day, she would usually call me and tell me what she was up to. She'd say that she was going to see friends or picking up Detlef from work. And I had no problem with any of that. On weekdays she was usually home for dinner. And when she was running late, she'd call and even then generally arrive home in an hour or so. When she was late, she told me it was because she'd stopped at the Center House or met up with friends.

She started lending a hand around the house again, and when she did I'd try and give her something in return, like a snack, or a record, or a little increase on her allowance. Klaus didn't think that was a good idea though. He thought I should focus more on myself and said that Christiane was just taking advantage of me. Maybe he was right, in retrospect. But I always felt a little guilty for what Christiane had already been through at that point and was just trying to do something nice for her. I wasn't seeing things clearly back then.

Klaus also thought it was a bad idea for me to let Christiane stay overnight at her girlfriends' places. He never thought she was telling the truth about that stuff. But it wasn't my style to go
spying on her or checking out her stories. That was the kind of thing my dad would do, even though I was never really up to anything.

Then one day Christiane told me that she had slept with Detlef. “Mom,” she said, “he was so sweet to me; you can't even imagine.” When she told me that, I thought that was the reason why she always wanted to stay overnight at her girlfriends' houses.

And really, so what, I thought. I didn't think it was a huge deal. From that point on, I occasionally allowed her to sleep over at Detlef's. I mean, how could I have prevented them from sleeping together anyway? Everyone in the media is always talking about how kids mature earlier these days, and it seems like the general feeling is that their sexuality shouldn't be suppressed. I agree with that.

Christiane at least had a steady boyfriend. Other girls in the neighborhood seemed to just go from one guy to the next. So her steady relationship with Detlef was reassuring to me. It showed some maturity.

On the other hand, if I really wanted to be honest, I sometimes got the feeling that something was really wrong. Especially when it came to her other new friends from The Sound. She told me that they sometimes did drugs, but she didn't talk about hard stuff like heroin. But I knew they'd smoke pot and had even taken acid. She described some really horrible things to me—like the fact that her friend Babsi was already an addict. But she talked about it all as if she was disgusted and turned off by it—I never would've thought that she herself was involved in any way.

When I asked her why she was hanging out with these kinds of people, she said, “Oh Mom, I feel so sorry for them. Most people don't want anything to do with them. So when someone does take the time to listen to them, they're so grateful and happy. They really need help.”

Christiane had always been altruistic, so that made sense to me. But now I can see that she was actually talking about herself.

One night, in the middle of the week, she didn't come home until 11 p.m. When she got back she just said, “Don't be mad at me. I went to a release center with some of my friends.” I asked her what a release center was, and she told me, “Well, it's where we go to try and get all the druggies to lay off for a while!” Then she added, “God, if I ever got addicted . . .” and suppressed a laugh. I stared at her, shocked. But then she broke in again with, “I'm just kidding, Mom. Everything's okay.”

“And what about Detlef? Is he okay?” At that point, Christiane seemed offended: “Of course!! That would be the last thing on his mind! He doesn't care about drugs.”

That was in the winter of '76. From then on I was seriously concerned that there was something very wrong, but I was trying to ignore that feeling. I didn't listen to my boyfriend either. By that point, he was absolutely convinced that Christiane was taking some serious drugs. But I wasn't ready to accuse her of anything yet. What kind of a mother wants to admit that she's failed? That everything she's done was for nothing? As a result, I just kept insisting that my daughter would never do that.

Still, I tried to rein Christiane in a little. But there were many times when she wouldn't show up for dinner, even though I'd told her we'd be expecting her—and I didn't know quite what to do at times like those. Where could I have gone looking for her? Even without my impressive talent for self-deception, I never would've suspected that she was hanging out at Zoo station. I was always glad when she called to let me know that at least she'd be home soon. I just didn't know how to handle her anymore.

But sometimes she'd respect my rules. Sometimes when her friends called, she'd tell them proudly, “No, I'm not allowed to come out today. I'm staying home.” It didn't seem to bother her. That was the contradictory thing about her: On the one hand,
she was infuriatingly rude and disrespectful—refusing to talk to me and doing whatever she wanted—and on the other hand she respected me when I set clear limits. But by then, it was already too late.

I got my wake-up call in late January 1977. It was horrible. I wanted to go into the bathroom, but the door was locked. That was unusual for us. Christiane was inside and wouldn't open the door. All of a sudden, I just knew. And for the first time, I faced up to my history of self-deception. Otherwise, how could I have known what was going on in the bathroom?

I started banging on the door, but she wouldn't open up. I was absolutely fuming. I began yelling at her, demanding that she open the door. Finally she burst out past me. I caught a glimpse of a blackened spoon and blood spatters on the wall. That was it. I knew all the signs from reading the newspaper stories. All my boyfriend said was, “So, do you believe me now?”

I ran after her. “Christiane,” I said in a shaky voice, “what have you done?” I was devastated—completely at a loss. My whole body was shaking. I didn't know whether to break down and cry or scream at her. I had to talk to her first. She was crying her heart out and didn't want to answer. I asked,“Did you shoot up?”

She didn't answer. She was sobbing so hard she couldn't talk. I grabbed her arms, forced them straight out beneath her, and saw them: track marks on both her arms. But it didn't look too bad. Really it didn't. She didn't have any bruises, and I could only see two or three needle marks, one of them fresh. That one was still red.

And then, through her tears, she confessed. I wanted to die. I really wanted to just leave it all behind and die. I was so distraught that I couldn't think. I didn't know what to do. “What are we going to do now?” I asked. I actually asked Christiane, as if she had the answer. Because I myself was completely at a loss.

So this was the nightmare I had wanted to avoid. This was the truth that I couldn't face up to. Couldn't accept. But I didn't know the signs to look out for. I hadn't noticed any apathy in Christiane. She was mostly cheerful and perky. The only thing that stood out over the previous few weeks was that sometimes, when she came home late, she'd go straight into her room. I just thought it was because she felt bad about coming home late though.

After I'd calmed down a bit, we talked about what to do next. As we considered the various options, Christiane revealed that Detlef was also addicted to heroin. It made sense for both him and Christiane to get clean together. Otherwise, whoever hadn't quit would keep pulling the other one down again. That made sense to me. We decided that both of them should clean up their act together at our place.

Christiane seemed very open and honest about the whole situation. She confessed that Detlef had also been involved in the prostitution scene at Zoo station in order to earn the money they needed for the drugs. I was stunned. It didn't occur to me that she might be doing the same thing; at the time, I thought her love for Detlef would have precluded it. She said that he was always able to earn enough on his own for both of them.

Christiane kept insisting that she “really, really” wanted to get off the stuff. So that same night we went off looking for Detlef. That's when I saw, for the first time, all of these sad, emaciated figures, walking up and down between the trains. And Christiane said, “That's not how I want to end up. Just look at them all!” She still looked relatively good. That almost reassured me.

After a couple hours of searching, we gave up and went to Detlef's father's house. He was aware of Detlef's heroin addiction, but he didn't seem aware that Christiane had reached the same point herself. I jumped right down his throat. “Why didn't you tell me anything?” I asked him. He said that he was too embarrassed.

Detlef's dad seemed relieved. He wanted to help financially. Until now, he'd tried in vain to get help for his son. It must have seemed like a real blessing to him, our interceding like this. I was so self-assured I even surprised myself. It felt good to take some control of the situation—even if I had no idea what actually lay ahead of me.

The next day I went out to get some professional advice. The first place I tried was the youth welfare office. I told them that my fourteen-year-old daughter was a heroin addict and asked what I should do. They weren't very helpful. “Put her in a home for other kids with the same problems,” they said. I told them that that was totally out of the question. Christiane would feel like I just wanted to get rid of her. And besides, they couldn't even recommend an appropriate place. They would have to do some research, and it would take a while. “It's hard to find a good spot for kids who aren't very well-behaved,” they told me.