Zoo Station: The Story of Christiane F. (44 page)

Everything was looking good. Her spot in the drug therapy program seemed as good as certain. The community home, that would take her in was all set. We were planning how to celebrate Christmas when she was in the community home, since it was already the beginning of November.

Her dad had, in the meantime, admitted to the fruitlessness of his attempts to help Christiane and agreed to the plan we had decided on. Finally, there seemed to be light at the end of the tunnel. But then Christiane came down with her second case of jaundice, which threw a wrench in the works. Her temperature climbed to almost 105°F overnight. The next morning, I took her to Steglitz Hospital. Christiane was completely yellow. She couldn't stand up and had to crawl to get down the hallway. After the exam, the doctor said that Christiane was suffering from congestion of the liver due to her drug abuse. Unfortunately, they couldn't keep her there because they didn't have an isolation ward at Steglitz Hospital. (I later found out that this wasn't true. Steglitz Hospital had an isolation ward with twenty-five beds. The truth was that they just didn't want to take in a heroin addict.) The doctor there still made an intake appointment for us at the Rudolf-Virchow Hospital for the next morning.

Within a couple of days, Christiane's yellow coloring began to disappear. Soon she was feeling much better and was looking forward to the therapy program. Her counselor from the drug advice center even came by to visit. I was as hopeful for her recovery as I'd been in a long time.

Then I let my guard down and made the unforgivable mistake of allowing Detlef to visit Christiane in the hospital. Christiane had really wanted to see him. Detlef had been released from jail, where he'd gotten clean, and he was out on parole. He'd also managed to secure a spot in a drug therapy program for himself. I didn't want to deny them a reunion. After all, I knew they loved each other. And I thought that maybe it would strengthen their resolve, and they would mutually encourage each other, knowing that the other was also going into rehab. How could I have been so impossibly naïve?

Soon after Detlef's visit, Christiane slipped out for an afternoon. When I stopped by to visit her after work, she had just
returned, and I could tell that she'd gotten high while she was away. That alone wouldn't have knocked me over. Not anymore. But when she tried to tell me that she'd just gone to the Gedächtniskirche
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to eat spaghetti—when she lied to me—that almost made my knees buckle.

I asked the nurse on duty if I could stay with Christiane to keep her out of trouble. I would pay for the bed of course. She said that that wasn't possible. She would keep an eye on Christiane in the future. Three days later, when I came by after work again, the nurse walked up to me and said, “Your daughter's gone.”

“Well, could you tell me where she is?” I asked.

“
We don't know. She got permission to go for a walk in the park and then she didn't return.”

I can't even describe how I felt. At home I lay down in the living room right next to the phone. At 11:20 p.m. at night, the hospital called to say that Christiane had returned. The indifference of the nurse was disturbing. Their attitude was, “If she escapes, then she escapes. That's her business. We've had enough addicts here to know that they all bolt eventually.”

The doctor seemed pretty cold about it, too. All she did was explain to me that she didn't have any influence over Christiane's behavior. If Christiane violated hospital regulations one more time, she'd have to be released due to lack of self-discipline. The results of the liver tests showed that if she continued on her current trajectory, she'd only reach the age of twenty, at most. The doctor promised to have a serious talk with Christiane. Unfortunately that was all she could say and do in Christiane's case.

The next evening, the hospital called to say that Christiane was gone again. Once again, I spent the whole night on the sofa next to the phone. This time, Christiane didn't come back at all. She was gone for two weeks. I didn't know if she was alive or dead.

The first two or three days, my boyfriend and I continued to go out looking for her. We did the usual search through the clubs and subway stations. Then I was asked to pick up her things from the hospital. When I brought her bag home and unpacked her books and toiletries and personal items that I'd brought her while she was in the hospital, I finally sank down to the point where I told myself, There, now you just have to let her fall flat on her face.

I told myself, Okay, if this is what she wants, then she's got to deal with it herself. I stopped looking for her. I was too hurt for words. I wanted her to feel that my patience with her was over and that I would really stick to my guns this time. How long I could've kept that up is anyone's guess.

I reported her as missing at the next police station and left a photo of her for the cops. I was sure they'd pick her up during one of their next drug raids. And then I'd get on the next plane with her and take her to Western Germany.

After fourteen days, on a Monday morning, I got the call from the police station. The officer at the other end of the line was unusually nice, considering how loudly Christiane was shouting and screaming at them in the station. I asked the officer to hold her there. I said I'd pick her up in the early afternoon.

Next, I ordered the tickets: a round-trip ticket for me and a one-way ticket for Christiane. As I ordered her one-way ticket, I felt a stab of sadness and pain. But I pushed through it and called my relatives with our flight information.

By that afternoon, everything was taken care of. On the way to the police station, I stopped to pick up my boyfriend. I thought, if she sits between the two of us, she can't jump out of the car.

Christiane didn't say a word when I picked her up from the station. I didn't either. I just couldn't.

At the airport, my knees were shaking, and my heart was in my throat. Christiane still didn't say anything. She completely ignored me. Right up until departure time, she sat in her seat, chewing her fingernails and reading a novel that she'd brought with her. But at least she hadn't make any attempts to run away.

Only when we were on the plane did I breathe a sigh of relief. During takeoff, she looked out the window. It was dark already. I said to her, “Well, now that's over. This chapter of our lives has come to an end. You're going to stay with Aunt Evelyn. I hope that you'll finally be able to start a new life out there.”

I SPENT THE FIRST FOUR DAYS
at my aunt and grandma's just going absolutely cold turkey. Then, once that was over and I was able to stand up again, I put back on my old uniform. It was the outfit of a junkie bride: From the rabbit fur coat to the high-heeled boots, I definitely managed to stand out from the pack. I put on my makeup and took my aunt's dog for a walk in the woods every morning, and every morning I'd get dressed up as if I was about to hit Berlin's heroin scene. My high heels got stuck in the sand, and I tripped a lot and got my knees covered in bruises, but when my grandma suggested that she could take me shopping to buy me some more sensible walking shoes, I could feel my entire body constricting. Just those two words alone— walking shoes—made me shudder in horror.

It turned out that my aunt, who had just turned thirty, was pretty fun to talk to—not about any of the real problems that I had, but I didn't want to talk about that stuff anyway. My real problems all boiled down to one thing, of course: H. Dope and everything that was connected to dope. Detlef, the scene, Ku'damm, the peace of a good shot, calmness, freedom. I tried not to think too much, even now that I was clean. When I did think, it was mainly about how I'd eventually be able to clear out of this place. But unlike before, I never really made a plan to escape. I kept putting it off, pushing it away. I just thought, Someday you'll run away. I was probably afraid to leave because freedom, over the last two years, had turned out to be a pretty terrifying thing.

My aunt's rules were oppressive. At fifteen years of age, I had to be back in the house exactly at 9:30 p.m. on the nights that I was allowed out at all. I hadn't had a curfew like that since I was twelve. Her rules really got on my nerves. But it was funny how I followed them.

During the holidays, we went to Hamburg to do our Christmas shopping. We got up early and tried to get to the department stores before they got too crowded, but that didn't work. It was a nightmare. Hours and hours of squeezing our way through these desperate packs of wild-eyed shoppers. Everywhere we went, they were snatching at boxes and packages, and digging around in their fat purses.

My grandma and my aunt and my uncle and my cousin kept trying on clothes and taking them off again. But it seemed like they could never find the exact right gift for Aunt Hedwig or Aunt Ida, for Jochen and for whoever else they had on their list. And my uncle still needed to find a pair of insoles for his shoes and something else for the car, which he thought he could get for cheaper at these department stores than he could back at home.

My grandma's tiny, and she's still able to slip through crowds like a weasel—so we were always losing her in the crowds. Then we'd have to launch another “find grandma” expedition. In the course of those recovery missions, I'd sometimes think about running away.

I already knew that there was a heroin scene in Hamburg, on Mönckeberg Street. All I would've had to do was run out of the department store and talk to a few junkies—the rest would've been easy. But I couldn't bring myself to do it. I don't think I really knew what I wanted in the end. All I knew was that I'd rather die in a toilet stall somewhere than spend the rest of my life at a department store with these people. So yeah, I think if a junkie had walked up to me that day and talked to me, I would've been gone.

I realized that my mood was kind of dangerous, so I told my aunts a few times that I needed to go. “I can't take this anymore,” I said. “You can come back later and keep shopping without me; I won't mind.” But they looked at me like I'd just dropped in from outer space. For them, going Christmas shopping was probably the highlight of their year.

When we'd finally finished up for the day, no one could remember where we'd parked the car. We ran from one garage level to the next and still nothing. I thought that it was a kind of fun situation since all of a sudden we were being forced to work together as a team. We talked over one another; everyone had different suggestions, but at least we had a common goal: We wanted to find that damn car. The only difference between the others and me was that I thought the whole thing was hilarious, and I couldn't stop laughing, while the others were already in a full-blown panic. In the meantime, it had gotten really cold, and everyone's teeth were chattering. I was still doing okay. I'd been through a lot worse.

Then my aunt found a hot air vent in the entrance to Karstadt,
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and she decided to settle there. She stood right under the blower and refused to take another step. My uncle had to forcibly remove her.

When we finally did find the car, we couldn't help but laugh. On the drive home, I felt really good. I felt like I was part of a real family.

I adapted a little to my new family life. At least I tried to. It was hard. I had to keep a constant watch on my language—on every sentence, every word. When “shit” slipped out, my grandma would say, “Christiane. That's a very ugly word for such a pretty girl.” Then a little fight would break out because those kinds of comments always pissed me off, and I couldn't keep myself from sulking. It led to a lot of outbursts from me.

Christmas came. It was the first time in two years that I celebrated Christmas next to a Christmas tree. I'd spent the last two Christmas Eves out on the streets. I wasn't sure how I should feel about this Christmas tree. However, I decided to put on a smile and at least show some gratitude for the presents they'd bought for me. I really was happy about my presents. I'd never gotten this much for Christmas. But at some point, I caught myself adding up the cash value of my gifts and converting that amount into quarters.

My dad visited over Christmas. As usual, he couldn't stay for long. On both Christmas nights
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he took me to a club for the eighteen-and-over crowd. My dad bought me all the rum and Cokes I wanted, so I had like six or seven each night and then dozed off at the bar. My dad was really pleased to see me drinking with him instead of shooting up. I was almost able to convince myself that I could eventually get used to these kinds of clubs and the people who went to them.

My dad flew back to Berlin the next day. Apparently he'd become a hockey fan at some point, and there was some hockey game that he wanted to see.

After Christmas vacation was over, I had to go back to school. I was set to begin ninth grade in the Realschule. At first, I was scared about starting up at school again. After all, I'd basically been AWOL for the past three years. The year before, I only showed up for a couple of months because the rest of the time I was either sick or in withdrawal again or just cutting class. But as it turned out, I kind of liked it at this school. On the first day, the class was busy painting a picture onto one of the boring white walls of the classroom. So I was able to join in immediately. We painted these beautiful houses—exactly the kinds of houses that I'd imagined I would live in. Out in front were happy, cheerful people. On the street out in front there was a palm tree with a camel tied to it. I loved it. Above the painting, we wrote the words, “There's a beach under every sidewalk.”