by Christiane F
When the pain let up after three days, my imagination went wild, and I started creating these idealized scenes in my mind. As I settled into these visions, they seemed almost real. In one of these fantasy worlds, I had stayed in school and even taken the university entrance exams. I had my own apartment, and a VW Cabriolet was parked in the driveway. When I took it out, I drove with the top down.
The apartment was on the outskirts of the city, surrounded by lots of trees. Maybe it was in Rudow, or maybe in Grunewald. My place was located in an old but still elegant building. It wasn't decadent though. It wasn't like all those gaudy old apartment buildings near the Kurfürstendamm—the ones with high ceilings, decorative stucco, huge entrance halls, marble floors, red carpet runners in the hall and up the stairs—the ones with mirrors everywhere and the tenants' names printed in gold leaf on their doors. My place wasn't like that at all—it wasn't poisoned with the stench of money and power. It was already clear to me that wealth on that scale came from a life spent lying and stealing—a high-stress life spent running back and forth on a high wire. That wasn't for me.
I wanted something simpler: an apartment in an old working-class neighborhood with two or three small rooms, low ceilings, small windows, and time-worn steps in the stairwell; I wanted a place where it always smelled a little of someone else's home cooking and where the neighbors would poke their heads out of their doors and say, “Hey there, Christiane! How are you?” The stairs would be so narrow that you'd inevitably brush up against your neighbors when you went up and down. Everyone in the house would work hard, but everyone would be content with what they had. They wouldn't need money or goods for their own sake, and they wouldn't be jealous; they'd help each other out. The people I would live with—like the people who I saw in my daydream—would be as different from the money-hungry elite as they would be from my dingy old neighbors at Gropiusstadt. In the house that I imagined, it was calm and peaceful.
The most important place in my dream apartment was the bedroom. Against the right-hand wall stood a very wide sleeper sofa covered in dark fabric. On either side of it was a night table. (One was for Detlef, for when he stayed with me.) And then there stood a potted palm on each side of the sofa. The room was full of plants and flowers. The wall behind the bed was covered in wall-paper—better than what you got in stores though. This wallpaper depicted a desert scene with enormous sand dunes, some palm trees in the distance, and, at a nearby oasis, some Bedouins with white turbans sitting in a circle, drinking tea. They looked very relaxed. A scene of total peace.
On the left side of the bedroom, in the alcove where the dormer window was built into the roof, was my sitting corner. It was a sitting area like they have in India or in the Middle East. There were a bunch of pillows gathered around a low, round table. That's where I sat at night, peacefulness personified—unworried, unbothered, and lacking for nothing.
The living room in this fantasy was just like the bedroom. The same plants, the same carpets. But in the middle was a large, round, wooden table with wicker chairs. When my friends came over, we would all sit around that table eating what I'd cooked and drinking tea. Books covered the shelves that had been built into the walls. They were all classic books, written by people who, like me, had found inner peace and who enjoyed nature and animals. I'd made the shelves myself out of boards and thick ropes. Most of the things in my apartment I'd made myself because I didn't like whatever was for sale in the furniture stores. The furniture in the stores looked pretentious and was just a way for people to display their wealth. There were no doors in my apartment, only curtains, because I didn't want my guests to have to endure the sound and stress of doors opening and closing all the time.
I had a dog—a Rottweiler—and two cats. I'd taken out the backseats of my Cabriolet so that the dog would have more space and feel more at ease when I drove around with him.
In the evenings, I'd take my time cooking dinner. I wanted to feel peaceful while cooking and not rush around all stressed out (the way my mom did). Then a key would turn in the front door. It was Detlef coming home from work. The dog jumped up on him, and the cats arched their backs and rubbed against his legs. Then Detlef gave me a kiss and sat down at the dinner table.
That was what I saw when I looked inside myself and dreamed. Except I didn't realize that it even was a dream. For me, it was just what was going to happen the day after tomorrow. That's how things would be after rehab. My whole world would change. I was so sure about this total transformation that I even told my mom after my third day of withdrawal that I'd be moving out when I finished with the program. I was going to get my own apartment.
On the fourth day, I was feeling so good already that I was able to get up and walk around again. I still had twenty marks in my pocket, and my awareness of the extra cash kind of set me on edge because right there, I was already halfway to forty, and with forty I could buy myself one last and final fix before I went to Narc Anon the next day.
I started talking to my sick kitty. I told him that I was going to be gone for a couple hours but that he didn't need to worry. With my syringe, I gave him a little chamomile tea with sugar— the only thing he could still keep down. Then, before I left, I promised him that he was going to make it—just like me.
Since I felt so good about things right then, I wanted to go for one last walk along the Kurfürstendamm. I knew that once you were at Narc Anon, there was no going out—or at least no going out alone. But since I was going to be over there, I'd have to shoot up at least a little bit because otherwise that whole area was just way too depressing. I only needed to get another twenty marks, and if I could find even one customer, that would be easy. But I didn't want to run into Detlef over there and have to tell him, “Hey, I just went through withdrawal, all by myself, and I feel really good about it. But now I need to find a john; I need to make a twenty.” There was no way Detlef would've understood. He would've laughed and told me I was never going to change. “Once a junkie, always a junkie.” I didn't want to go through that, not under any circumstances.
But then, while I was in the subway, I had an idea: I'd head over to the boulevard. The reason why it first sprang to mind was because of the amount: twenty marks. For a job on the boulevard, the usual payout just happened to be exactly twenty marks. Babsi and Stella already worked the boulevard at the corner of Kurfürstenstrasse and Genthiner Streets, but I was still really freaked out by it. I didn't like that the customers couldn't walk up to you, like at Zoo Station, which gave you some time to check them out; instead, you had to just walk over to the customer's car when he waved. So you could never tell what kind of guy he was going to be.
The worst thing was when you fell into the hands of a pimp. The pimps pretended to be customers, but once they got you into their car, there was nothing you could do. Most pimps didn't really want junkies working for them because too much of the earnings went toward dope. But they did want to drive the junkies away from the area because junkies got in the way of the professionals' business.
Babsi once got into a pimp's car by accident. He kept her locked up for three days. He tortured and then raped her. He gave access to anyone and everyone—hoboes, drunks, criminals— he didn't care. And of course Babsi had to deal with suffering through withdrawal at the same time. Something snapped in her around that time. But she still went back to work the streets. After all, she was the little queen with the angel face.
The professional hookers were almost as dangerous as the pimps. The corner at Potsdamer Street was where all the nastiest, meanest, most time-tested prostitutes in Berlin all worked, and it was only a couple football fields' distance away from where the “baby prostitutes” hung out on the Kurfürstenstrasse. Sometimes they'd organize their own kind of raids on the girls, and if they caught one, they'd scratch her face to shreds.
I got out at the Kurfürstenstrasse subway stop and was immediately petrified with fear. In my head I went over the advice that I'd always heard Stella and Babsi give about the boule
vard: Stay away from younger guys in big American cars—they're most likely pimps. The ones to focus on are the older guys, the ones with a gut, a tie, and, better yet, a hat—they're okay. And best of all were the men who had a baby seat in the back. Obedient family men who just wanted a little variety, a little time away from Mommy, and who were guaranteed to be even more frightened than the girls.
I walked the hundred yards or so from the subway station to Genthiner Street, over by where The Sound used to be. I pretended that I just happened to be passing by. I didn't walk close to the street—instead I veered over toward the house—but somebody still stopped right away. But he looked kind of weird to me. Maybe it was the beard, but for whatever reason I suspected that he was a kind of aggressive guy. So I gave him the finger and kept on walking.
There was no one else in sight. After all, it was still before noon. From Stella's and Babsi's stories I knew that the customers got anxious when they'd taken a half-hour off for this and there were no girls to be had. Sometimes there were more customers than there were girls. So before long, a couple more cars stopped, but I still pretended not to see them.
I looked into the shop window of a furniture store and was immediately transported back to that vision I'd had of my future life. I had to remind myself to get a grip, to pull myself together. All I wanted to do was just get this over with as quickly as possible, earn my twenty marks, and go. It took concentration. You had to focus on the task at hand or else it was going to take too long.
A white car pulled over next to me. There wasn't a child's seat in the back, but the guy didn't look very dangerous. I got in without thinking a second thought, and we agreed on a fee of thirty-five marks.
We drove to Askanischer Place. There was an old, abandoned train station there that belonged to the DDR's national railway. The whole thing didn't take long. The guy was nice, and right away I had that wonderful feeling again. I even forgot that he was a customer. He said that he'd like to see me again, but that it couldn't be anytime soon since he and his wife and kids were going on a vacation to Norway in a few days.
I asked him if he would do me a favor and drive me to Hardenberg Street, to the technical university over there, and he said it would be no problem. There was a big drug scene over by the university in the mornings.
It was a beautiful warm day, May 16, 1977. I remember the date well because it was two days before my fifteenth birthday. After he let me out, I walked all around the area and talked to a few guys. I stopped to pet a dog. I was happy. It felt amazing not to be in any hurry and to wait for as long as I wanted before shooting up. After all, I didn't even need the stuff anymore, did I?
After a while, though, a guy walked past me and asked if I wanted some dope, and I said yes. He walked ahead to Ernst-Reuter Place, where I bought a quarter off of him for forty marks. After that, I went straight into the ladies' bathroom nearby, which happened to be fairly clean. I only put half of the dope on the spoon because after a withdrawal you're not supposed to start with a full dose right off the bat. I made a little ceremony out of giving myself the shot since I thought that it was going to be the absolute last time ever.
Two hours later, I woke up. My butt had slipped way down into the toilet, and the needle was still stuck in my arm. My things were strewn all over the place in the tiny toilet stall where I had passed out. But it only took a few seconds for me to regain my composure. My decision to quit hadn't come a second too soon. My whole plan about taking a nice little walk through the old neighborhood was off the table now. All the optimism that I'd started out with had evaporated. In the cafeteria nearby, I had some mashed potatoes with leeks for a little under three marks, but I couldn't keep it down. I dragged myself to Zoo station to say good-bye to Detlef, but he wasn't there. I had to get home. My kitty needed me.
Kitty was still right where I'd left him, on my pillow. I cleaned out my syringe and then dribbled some more chamomile tea and sugar into his mouth. This wasn't exactly the way I'd imagined I'd be spending my last few hours as a junkie. I thought that maybe I should postpone my check-in at the clinic so that I could still do that last walk down the Ku'damm. But then my mom came in and asked where I'd been all afternoon. I told her, and she asked, “Didn't you want to stop by Narcotics Abusers Anonymous today, to find out about a few things?”
I immediately went ballistic and started yelling at her.
“Leave me alone!” I screamed. “I didn't have any time. Don't you understand?”
“You're going over there tonight!” she yelled back at me. “Go pack your things right now. And you're staying there overnight.”
I had just cooked myself a pork chop with mashed potatoes. I took the plate, went to the bathroom, locked myself in, and sat on the toilet. So this was my last night at my mom's. I was yelling at her because she'd figured out that I was back on H again and because I hated myself for having shot up one more time. And I was ready to check myself into Narc Anon.
I PACKED A FEW THINGS INTO my duffel bag and then slid the syringe, a spoon, and the rest of the dope into my underpants. We took a taxi to Zehlendorf, where the Narc Anon house was. The Narc Anon people didn't ask me any questions at first. So they really did seem to admit anyone. (They even had recruiters who went out to the drug-saturated areas of the city and talked to the junkies there, trying to convince them to join the Narc Anon rehab program.) But they did question my mom. They wanted to be paid up front—fifteen hundred marks as a down payment for the first month. No way my mom had that much money. But she promised to drop it off the next morning. She needed to take out a loan. She begged and pleaded with them to let me stay, and they finally agreed.
I asked if I could use the bathroom, and they let me. (So it wasn't like at the other rehab centers I'd heard about, where if they found something on you, you had to go home.) When I came out again, they could see that I was high, but they didn't say anything. I gave them my syringe and spoon. The guy who collected it from me looked surprised: “We really appreciate your giving this up voluntarily.”
I had to go to the cold turkey room since now they knew I was doped up. There were two others in that room, but one of them hightailed it out of there the next morning. That worked out well for the Narc Anon people because when someone left right away, they still got to keep the full payment for the month.
They gave me some books about the teachings of the Church of Scientology. Some of the stuff I read was pretty incredible. It all sounded okay to me. At least they had some good stories—stories that you could choose to either believe or not believe. So I looked through their books for something that sounded believable.
After two days, they let me leave the cold turkey room since I didn't have bad withdrawal symptoms after only two shots. I was put into a room with someone named Christa. She was certifiable. From the word go, she was resistant to all of their attempts to help her—laughing at the therapists and mocking the therapy in general. She walked into our room and searched the baseboard trim for pills. She was convinced that someone, sometime, must have hidden some acid or pills in there. She took me up to the attic at one point and started talking about how we should bring some mattresses up there, along with some weed and wine, and have an orgy. This woman really depressed me. Even though I knew she was nuts, she made it hard for me to get my mind off drugs, and she was always talking about how the Narc Anon people had “shit for brains.” Meanwhile, I was still trying to take it seriously and get clean.
On day two, my mom called to say that my cat had died. That was my fifteenth birthday. She wished me a happy birthday only after she had given me the news about my cat. She was upset about it, too. After that I spent the rest of my birthday morning sitting on my bed and crying.
When the Narc Anon guys saw that I was crying and couldn't make myself stop, they said that I needed a session. I was locked in a room with a guy who used to be a junkie, and he started right out by giving me a bunch of seemingly useless instructions. I was only allowed to say yes and was supposed t
o obey every command.
The guy said, “See the wall? Go to the wall. Touch the wall.” And then he'd point to a different wall and start all over again. For what seemed like forever, I was forced to run wall to wall in this stupid room. At some point, I'd had enough and said, “Come on, what is this crap? Are you guys nuts? Leave me alone. I can't handle this anymore.” But he just stared at me with this dumb smile plastered across his face. That smile of his never changed, never wavered, and after a while he wore me down, and I agreed to keep going. After the wall, he would point to something else, and we would keep going. But finally I couldn't move another step, and I threw myself onto the floor, screaming and crying.
He smiled and I kept going after I'd calmed down. By now I was also smiling that same smile. I was completely unemotional, like a robot. I'd touch the wall even before he'd issued his command. The only thing I kept thinking was that, at some point, it had to end.
After exactly five hours he said, “Okay, that's enough for today.” I actually felt kind of awesome. I had to follow him into another room. Inside there was a funny-looking, homemade instrument—a kind of pendulum between two tin cans. He told me to touch the pendulum. “Are you feeling well?” he asked.
“I feel good,” I told him. “It seems like I'm way more aware of everything I'm experiencing—way more conscious.”
The guy stared at the pendulum and then said, “It didn't move, so you weren't lying. The session seems like it was a success.”
I guess that funny little thing was a lie detector. In any case, I was happy that the pendulum hadn't moved. For me it was proof that I was really doing well. I was ready to believe anything in order to get off of H.
They were doing all sorts of weird things there. When Christa came down with a fever that same evening, they made her touch a bottle over and over again, and every time she did they would ask her if it was hot or cold. In her feverish state of mind, she didn't seem to care though. After an hour of that routine, they declared that her fever was gone.