Zoo Station: The Story of Christiane F. Read online

  But we eventually found an ideal spot under the puny maple trees that they'd planted among the apartment buildings. In order to keep the little trees from suffocating, they'd left space around each tree for earth instead of concrete. The round openings they'd left consisted of firm soil that was raked clean and level. Simply ideal for making marble runs.

  But now it wasn't just the building managers who were after us, but also the gardener. They all kept chasing us away, hoping to scare us off with their wild threats. Of course, we ignored them. Then, unfortunately for us, one day our tormentors came up with a good idea: They didn't rake the soil (which made it flat) but turned it over. That was the end of our marble runs.

  But we had other entertainments: When it rained, the entrance halls and corridors on the ground floors were slippery and ideal for roller-skating. The noise didn't even bother anybody at first, since there weren't any apartments on the ground floors. We tried it out a few times, and nobody bothered us—much to our surprise—except for the wife of the property manager. After a while, she said that the roller skates left marks on the floor. So, another failed undertaking. And another spanking from my dad.

  During bad weather, it sucked to be a kid in Gropiusstadt. Nobody was allowed to have any friends over because the rooms were too small. Most of the kids we knew lived in a half-size room, just like we did. When it rained, I sometimes sat by the window and thought about what we used to do back in our town in similar weather. Wood carving, for example. We were always ready for rainy weather. When the weather was nice, we'd go into the woods and collect thick pieces of oak bark for making little boats. And then, if it rained for so long that we actually finished with our carving before the rain stopped, we'd just put on our rain gear and head down to the stream to try out the boats. We'd even build harbors and organize races.

  So, we couldn't have each other over, but there was also nothing entertaining about hanging out between the high-rises when it was raining. We had to think of something. Something fun. Something that was totally against the rules. And then it hit us: We had the elevators.

  At first, the objective was just to annoy the other kids. We'd grab a kid, lock him in an elevator, and then push all the buttons. The other elevator we'd hold at the ground floor. Then the kid had to rattle all the way to the top, stopping on every floor. They did that to me a lot, too. Especially when I came back from a walk with my dog and had to be back on time for dinner. It would take forever to get to the eleventh floor, plus it made Ajax really nervous.

  It was even worse for the kids who had to pee. If they got pranked, then they'd usually end up having to pee in the elevator. But the worst thing of all was when it happened to a kid who had no wooden spoon (or whose wooden spoon had just been grabbed). All the little kids made sure to never go outside without our wooden spoons because we could only reach all the elevator buttons with something that had a long handle. The easiest thing to grab and take along was a long-handled wooden cooking spoon out of your mom's kitchen. Without such a wooden spoon, you were screwed. If you lost it or the other kids took it away, you had to trudge up flights of stairs. The other kids wouldn't dare help you, and the grown-ups wouldn't either because they thought that you just wanted to play with the elevator and break it.

  The elevators broke down a lot, and we weren't entirely blameless there. We also liked to hold elevator races, because even though they went at the same speed, there were a few tricks you could use to shave a few seconds off your time. For one, the outer door had to be closed quickly but with a delicate touch— because if you slammed it too hard, it would bounce open again just a little. Also, the safety door closed automatically, but if you manually helped it along, it closed faster. Sometimes it also just broke. I was pretty good at racing the elevators.

  Soon, our thirteen floors weren't enough for us anymore. Besides, the caretaker was always right on our heels, which added an unpleasant element of stress. We needed new terrain, but going into other apartment buildings was absolutely forbidden for us. And we couldn't get in anyway because we didn't have a master key. But then we found a way: There was a second entrance for furniture and other large delivery items. It was blocked by a gate, but I figured out how to get through: You needed to go headfirst, and it was a real puzzle to figure out how to turn your head to squeeze past, but somehow we did it. (The skinny kids, at least.)

  Once we'd made our way through, we found ourselves in the midst of a veritable elevator paradise: a high-rise building with thirty-two floors and unbelievably sophisticated elevators. Suddenly we had a whole new set of games and activities, which would never have been possible in our old building. One of our favorite new activities was “jumping.” When we all jumped up at the same time during the ride, the thing came to a stop. The safety door opened. Or, if you jumped right when you got in the elevator, the safety door wouldn't close at all. No matter what happened, it was pretty exciting.

  Another crazy thing you could do was push the handle for the emergency brake to the side, instead of down, so that the safety door would stay open during the entire ride. It made you realize how fast the elevators actually went. It was crazy how fast the concrete dividers and elevator doors flashed past us.

  Those games were all pretty good for some quick excitement, but the true test of courage was to push the alarm button. It set off a bell, and then the caretaker's voice would come through the loudspeaker. That was the signal to hightail it out of there. A building with thirty-two floors presented good odds for escaping the caretaker. He was always trying to ambush us but didn't have much luck.

  The most exciting game during bad weather was the one we invented for the basement. It was probably also the most dangerous—or at least the most forbidden. We somehow found a way into the area of the basement where every tenant had a storage space screened in with wire fencing. The fencing didn't go all the way to the ceiling, so you could climb over the top. So that's where we played hide-and-seek. We called it “no-holds-barred hide-and-seek”—meaning, you could hide anywhere. It was really creepy. It was already pretty scary to hide among the unfamiliar stuff of strangers in that dusty, dim light. Add to that the fear that someone could show up at any moment. We suspected that we were pretty much doing the most illegal thing we could possibly be doing.

  We also played this game where we tried to outdo each other in finding the most outrageous things in those storage spaces— toys, or junk, or clothing (which we'd then play with, or mess with, or try on). Afterward, of course, we usually couldn't remember which storage spaces the stuff had come from, and so we just tossed it anywhere. Sometimes, if there was something really cool, we'd take it with us. Of course, then it was discovered that someone had “broken in” down there. But we were never caught. That's how we came to learn the following rule: If it's allowed, it's probably boring, and if it's forbidden, it's probably fun.

  There was a shopping center across from our apartment house, which was also more or less off-limits for us. It was guarded by a fanatical caretaker, who chased us off whenever he saw us. He went really nuts whenever I came remotely close by with Ajax. He said that we were the ones who trashed the place and brought all the dirt into the shopping center. The place looked okay from a distance, but if you got up close, you saw how dingy and dirty everything was. Each shop tried to be more swanky, more exclusive, and classier and hipper than the last. But the dumpsters in the back were always overflowing and stank, and you always risked stepping in melted ice cream or dog shit, or knocking over soda cans and beer bottles.

  The caretaker of the shopping center was supposed to clean it up at night. No wonder that he'd lurk around all day, hoping to catch someone making a mess. But he was powerless to do anything about the store owners, who threw their trash next to the dumpsters. And he didn't dare approach the drunk teenagers who freely tossed empty beer cans anywhere they wanted to. And the old ladies with their little dogs just snapped sassy replies back at him. So he let out his primitive rage against us kids.

/>   They didn't like us in the shops, either. When one of us got some money—whether by allowance or some other means—we'd go straight into the coffee shop, where they also sold penny candy. And all the other kids would follow behind, because that was a big event. It drove the salesladies nuts when a half-dozen kids came into the store and started arguing over what they should buy for a few pfennigs.5 Eventually we started hating the store owners and didn't think twice about stealing from them.

  There was also a travel agency in the shopping center, where we liked to stand and press our noses against the window until we were shooed away. They had these fantastic pictures in the shop windows showing palm trees, beaches, native people, and wild animals. In the middle of it all hung a model airliner from the ceiling. We all liked to pretend that we were sitting in that plane on our way to that beach, climbing palm trees to watch rhinos and lions.

  Next to the travel agency was the Bank for Commerce and Industry. Back then, we didn't think it was weird for there to be a bank for commerce and industry in Gropiusstadt, of all places (where everyone earned their paltry wages by working for industrial and commercial establishments). We liked the bank. The refined gentlemen in their fancy suits were always friendly to us. They also weren't as busy as the ladies in the coffee shop. They would let me change my pfennigs (which I'd swiped from my mom's penny jar) for larger coins. And it was necessary, too, since in the coffee shop, they'd get furious if you paid for anything with pennies. And at the bank, if we said please, like sweet, well-behaved kids, they'd give us little piggy banks. Or little banks shaped like elephants sometimes, too. Maybe those nice gentlemen thought that we needed so many piggy banks because we were such diligent savers. But I, for one, never put a penny into any of them. Instead, we used the animals to play “zoo” in the sandbox.

  As our pranks got worse and worse, they built something they called an “adventure playground” for us. I don't know what they really meant by “adventure.” But it had nothing to do with actual adventure. I guess it was there for the parents, so that they would think their kids were having fun. Anyway, it must have cost a ton of money. It certainly took them long enough to build. And when we were finally allowed on it, we were greeted by friendly social workers: “So, what would you kids like to play today?” and shit like that. The so-called adventure consisted of us being constantly supervised.

  They gave us real tools and smooth-planed boards and nails. So one was allowed to build something, it would seem. A social worker would make sure that we wouldn't smash our fingers with the hammer. Once a nail was in the wood, it was in. No taking it out or changing anything. Of course, we always changed our minds before it was finished and wanted to make it look different.

  I was explaining to one of those social workers once that where I used to live, in the country, we built caves and real tree houses. Without hammers or one single nail. With whatever boards and branches we could find. And every day, when we came back, we kept tinkering with it and changing everything. And that was fun. I'm sure the social worker was trying to understand what I meant about changing a project before it was finished, but he had his responsibilities and instructions.

  In the beginning, we still had our own ideas about what we could do on this adventure playground. For example, once we wanted to be a pretend Stone Age family and cook real pea soup over a fire. The social worker thought that was a great idea. Unfortunately, he said, cooking pea soup wasn't allowed. How about building a cabin, he asked, with hammer and nails. A hammer and nails—in the Stone Age?

  But soon the playground was closed off again. They said they wanted to rebuild it, so that we could also use it in bad weather. Then iron beams were unloaded, and cement mixers and a team of construction workers arrived. They built a concrete bunker with windows. Seriously, a real concrete bunker. No log cabin or anything like that, but a block of concrete. Its windows were smashed in after a few days. I don't know if the boys smashed the windows because the sight of the concrete thing made them aggressive, or whether the playhouse was built out of concrete because in Gropiusstadt everything not made out of iron or concrete ended up being broken. The concrete bunker now took up most of the space of the adventure playground. Then they built a school directly adjacent to it, which got its own playground, one with a slide, monkey bars, and a few short, assorted-sized round logs driven into the ground vertically, which provided good cover if you had to pee. The school playground was built partly on the adventure playground and surrounded with mesh wire fencing. That didn't leave much adventure playground.

  The little adventure playground that was left was gradually taken over by the older boys, whom we called rockers. They arrived in the afternoons, already wasted, terrorized the younger kids, and just smashed everything. Breaking stuff was their hobby and just about their only amusement. The social workers couldn't deal with them. So then the adventure playground was closed down most of the time.

  Instead of the adventure playground, we kids were given a real attraction. They built a sledding hill. It was awesome the first winter. We could choose our own runs down the hill. We had a “death run” and an easy run. The boys whom we called rockers liked to make sledding dangerous. They formed chains with the sleds with the goal to run us over. But we could dodge them and go down other runs. Those days when there was snow were among my happiest days in Gropiusstadt.

  In the spring, we had almost as much fun on the sledding hill. We'd run and play with our dogs and roll down the hill. The most fun was fooling around on our bikes. The downhill rides were insane. It looked more dangerous than it really was. Because if you actually did crash, you landed in the soft grass.

  But guess what? Soon they didn't allow us to play on the sledding hill anymore. They said, “This is a sledding hill, not a playground, and certainly not a racetrack for bikes.” The scars we had made in the lawn had to grow over and recover, etcetera. By now we were no longer little kids, so the word forbidden had lost its effect on us, and we kept on going to the sledding hill. Then one day, the men from the landscaping department arrived and put up barbed wire fencing all around the sledding hill. But we only conceded defeat for a few days. Until someone found some wire cutters. We cut a hole into the barbed wire that was big enough to get through with our dogs and bikes. When they patched the hole, we cut it open again.

  A few weeks later, the little army of construction workers was back. They started walling off and paving over our sledding hill. Our “death run” got turned into steps. Paved walkways cut through all of our runs. Onto the top of the hill, they put a cement platform. One strip of grass remained for sledding.

  During the summer months, there wasn't a thing left for us to do on the hill. In the winter, the one remaining sledding run was way too dangerous. But the worst was having to walk to the top. You now had to negotiate stone slabs and steps that were always iced over. We bloodied our knees, bumped our heads, and, if it was really bad, got a concussion.

  You see, everything was made more and more perfect in Gropiusstadt.

  When we moved there, this grand example of a model suburb was not finished yet. Especially right outside the high-rise quarter, there was much that had not yet been perfected. What we considered to be our paradise playgrounds were just a short walk away, so even we younger kids could get to by ourselves.

  The most beautiful spot was near the Wall,6 which wasn't far from Gropiusstadt. There was an undeveloped strip alongside it that we called the “little woods,” or no-man's-land. It was almost twenty-two yards wide and nearly a mile long. There were trees, bushes, tall grass you could disappear in, old boards, and water holes.

  There we climbed around, played hide-and-seek, and felt like explorers who every day discovered a new part of our little wild wood. We could even make campfires and roast potatoes and make smoke signals.

  But inevitably, one day, it was discovered that kids from the projects were playing over there. Then the troops arrived again to create order and clean up. And they put up the all-too
-familiar signs. Nothing was allowed anymore; everything was forbidden: biking, climbing trees, letting dogs run off-leash. The policemen, who were lurking around the area anyway because of the Wall, made sure that the new rules and regulations were obeyed. Apparently our no-man's-land was now a bird conservation area. A little later, they turned it into a garbage dump.

  But there was still the old landfill, which had been covered over with earth and sand. We often played on it with our dogs. This was also secured against us, first with barbed wire, then with tall fencing, before a scenic restaurant was built on top of the dump.

  Another beautiful spot to hang out was in a few fields, that the farmers no longer cultivated. There, the corn and cornflowers and poppies and wild grasses and nettles grew so high that you would soon sink into them up over your head. The government had bought these fields with the intention of turning them into real recreation areas. Piece by piece they were fenced off. A riding stable swallowed up one portion of the old fields, and tennis courts were built on another part. So now there was nothing left for us. That took care of all the places we could go to get away from Gropiusstadt.

  At least my sister and I worked and rode horses at the riding stable. In the beginning, we could ride wherever we wanted to go. Later, it was forbidden to ride on all streets and even country roads. They had built a dedicated riding path for that purpose. Exactly the way a proper riding path was supposed to look, with nice sand and everything. Probably cost a lot of money. This riding path ran right alongside the railroad tracks. Between the fence and the railroad tracks, you could just barely fit two horses side by side. That's where we were supposed to ride now, as the freight trains came thundering past. I'd like to see a horse that doesn't bolt when a loaded freight train thunders by a couple of yards away. In any case, our horses always freaked out. And the only thing you could think about at that moment was, I hope my horse doesn't run into the train. But I was a lot better off than the other kids because I had my pets. Sometimes I took my three mice with me to the sandbox at the playground. At least the playground regulations didn't say, “No mice allowed.” We built tunnels and caves for them and let them run around.