Heroine: California Dreamin' (38 page)

“Well you do have a psychosis. But what does that mean? Look, Miss Juliane, this term of illness is only a phrase. With you as a prospective colleague I can speak openly. If you introduced some person who is perhaps a bit depressed because he or she has lost his or her job and who is afraid because they can no longer pay their mortgage to a psychiatrist with the current status of training and education – half of those doctors would diagnose a ‘psychosis’ in this person because the emotional situation of these people would fit the effect of medications that are being prescribed for psychoses.

“
Your hallucinations derive exclusively from these idiotic drugs. Otherwise you are healthy.” Blood had rushed to my face when he called me ‘prospective colleague’ and I couldn’t hold back my tears – I was that grateful for this compliment. But then my skepticism returned.

“How could I ever become a therapist if and when I constantly have such hallucinations and rely on medications?” I whined. He looked at me with a serious face.

“Now let me tell you something what I would never share with most of my colleagues. This is confidential. You’ve told me about three dead people who had ‘visited’ you when you were imprisoned in California and Cologne. I do not believe that you had this kind of hallucinations such as paranoid people have them.”

“But how can dead people get dressed up and come to me into a closed room? Do you perhaps believe in ghosts?” I was shocked.

“No, I do not believe in ghosts. But I am firmly convinced that there are connections between human beings that have found extraordinary ties between them in their lifetime – be it through love or hate or violence. Think about the “
collective unconscious
” that was postulated by our great teacher C. G. Jung. What you did see were images from your subconsciousness but they were linked with people who were more than just linked to you. I am certain that boundaries between time and space have been lifted in the subconsciousness and thus you created the images for yourself to make them visible so that the linked open personae would not pose a threat. What you have seen has very much to do with reality. With unprocessed feelings, fears and, in your case, guilt.”

To me it was like he had brought a chord to swing in me, a chord I’ve known for a long time. I couldn’t express it with my intellectual power but I felt that his words hit a spot. In particular when he mentioned ‘guilt’ I felt a heavy sting in my heart.

“But why did I also see this Joe? He only died when I had already been released from prison?” My head was not yet in tune with what I had heard.

“I had given it some thought. I suggest to look at that once in a hypnosis session. One of my assistants, Rudi, is a master in freeing hidden facts in people with hypnosis. Would you like to do that?” I agreed.

“Returning to your desire to work as a therapist. Look, Miss Juliane, you have had horrific experiences and they not only could
not
break you, no, you actually grew through them. That is the one point. The other point is that your drug abuse had you develop such fine antennas for extraordinary phenomena that it would be a shame if you wouldn’t use it for healing others. I have learned to know many normal people in my office who were in the state of emotional emergencies. Often it was like that they had experiences that could not be explained by rational means. With time I started to understand that many people carry something around with them what they would never confide to a physician because they are afraid to be declared ‘crazy’. With a therapist that is as sensitive as you are and someone who had comparable experiences such people would certainly open up much easier. All you need to do is to learn to differentiate your own feelings from the feelings of others and then you’ve got everything to be able to work professionally. What it means: we will now start with counseling or conversational psychotherapy. To be exact another one of my assistants will take that over. His name is Bëat Hungkübler and he has a lot of experience with cases like yours.”

I was happy that he ended this conversation because some of his explanations were not easy for me to ‘digest’.

I got to meet Dr. Hungkübler later. He looked very handsome and despite of the treatment with the antidote I liked him so much that I fell in love with him already after a few sessions. I told my story, he listened paying attention, he asked questions and slowly displaced details from a far distant past resurfaced – details that gave my horrible experiences some meaning. But I was not satisfied with that. I wanted more from Bëat as I was allowed to call him. After a few weeks I had regained my old figure and also energy – now I wanted to go to bed with him though I knew that this was an absolute ‘no no’ for therapists. But I pushed my concerns aside because I was also sexually absolutely starved. After two attempts I finally succeeded. He touched me when I sat on the couch in his office beside his armchair, then he came closer and kissed me. We made love right there on the couch and I enjoyed his beautiful body and his tender touches. But the relationship didn’t last long.

“Julie, we can’t go on with that.” His lead at our next rendezvous was like a bucket full of cold water.

“I become impossible as a therapist and I feel like a failure because I couldn’t keep the distance. That can cost me my job if that is being disclosed. I will not touch you ever again. That is not only detrimental to me but also to you. Do you understand?” I nodded sadly and couldn’t keep back my tears, for that I loved him too much. But at the same time I accepted his reasoning.

“For the last few days I thought extensively about how this could have happened between us. You are capable to seduce anybody via your body language. For you sex is a language on its own and you use it to get in closer contact with others. In reality it is only a desire for closeness, something you’ve never experienced as a child. Now I am pretty certain that I know how you are able to manipulate other people. I make you the following offer: we videotape our conversations and then we’ll analyze together how you go about being so attractive for men as well as for women. I am also certain that you had practiced that already as a small child.” And that was true. First, I only saw us two on the screen, the two of us talking. Then Beat started pointing out my body language. I needed a little while until I recognized the small almost invisible signals that I transmitted when I wanted to seduce somebody. I was fascinated watching myself and I was surprised how ‘the Julie’ on the screen impressed me. I remembered Irene’s words when she discussed it with her therapist Dr. Champlain last year: ‘
Dr. Champlain believed that you can’t differentiate between the desire for closeness and intimacy and sexuality.’

“You’ve trained for that already during your early childhood”, Beat continued rather dryly.

“After what I’ve learned from you so far I am sure that this eroticized body language was the only possibility for you to be seen as a living being. Sex has helped you to survive. Then as an adult you have continued to using this method but it brought you to the point that you became target of psychopaths when you were alone. Your method turned from a survival mode into a danger.”

It fell like scales from my eyes. My longings, my fears, my miseries let me look for cover from people who wanted to do me harm. The way how Bëat was talking to me through the next few months had as result that we grew apart emotionally from one another but simultaneously it wove a trusting relationship. ‘Sex’ remained only as a factual topic in our conversations. My infatuation made room for sympathy.

By the end of the therapy another shock had been waiting for me. As suggested by the professor Dr. Rudi Weskopf stood all ready to hypnotize me. I was curious about its procedure.

At my request Bëat was also present because I didn’t know Rudi well enough to wanting to be in one room with him all by myself. Partially for one reason namely that Rudi was not at all attractive. He was only about five feet tall but weighed at least eighty kilograms if not more. His face was bloated and covered with beard stubbles and he perspired with every little move he made. Buy as a hypnotist he was a genius. I only realized that I was in trance when he asked me if I would be prepared to look at the stuff consciously what I’ve revealed to him in hypnosis.

Confused I looked at Bëat who was sitting beside me. When he nodded trustingly I agreed. In hindsight I wasn’t so sure any more if that had been a wise choice. The emotional pain and the angst that I felt subsequently were hard to bear.

Alan Apala had tried to rape me but not only did he not succeed but I subsequently even defeated him what would have then made me stronger if he hadn’t died. Robert I had invited. He used violence against me but I had wanted that in order to bribe him. Bëat had a different view of that but I knew quite well that I had seduced Robert.

With Joe everything was different. This pimp had attacked me and tried to rape me. I had displaced that so far that I faded out completely what he had actually done to me.

After Robert’s death I returned once more to San Jose one day and ran through the city full of guilt feelings. The movie studio was not away from an area one should avoid as a woman. Why I still went there though I didn’t know the street was unbeknownst to me.

Bëat thought that it might be connected to my guilt feelings that I had from Robert’s demise. Perhaps I looked for some punishment?

But it was there where I met Joe. He talked to me, walked beside me and tried to coax me into working for him as a prostitute. After I had resisted for a while he smacked me in the face, dragged me into an entrance and tried to rape me.

I remembered that I yelled loudly for help on the street but seemingly nobody cared about it. Then I heard police sirens. He let go of me and ran away.

I was afraid of the police because I anticipated that they were looking for me because of Robert’s death. So I fled the scene as well.

The angst, the embarrassment and the feeling of helplessness were as present as they were then. Then I only recovered with great efforts but I displaced the event because I connected it with Robert’s death. It was too horrible that I wanted to keep it in my memory.

Perhaps that was also linked to the immense hatred I felt for Joe. I had promised myself to kill him should I ever meet him again. Well, later on police took care of that for me. But why did he show up in my cell before his demise? This puzzle could not be solved through hypnosis.

I felt sick when we left Rudi’s treatment room. I hadn’t felt that miserable for a long time and it took me several days to recover from that shock. Then I saw the professor again and I was happy when he offered to me to finish therapy with a group seminar at Lake Zurich.

Here up on the mountain daylight was already breaking. I interrupted my story and looked out of the window where Lake Zurich was still covered in the nightly gray. Again, like the last two nights we had talked through almost the entire night and found hardly any sleep. Beside me in bed lay Eva who shared the room with me.

“Eva, now I have kept you up almost all night again. I hope that you don’t hold this against me one day?” I hugged her and caressed her.

“With this crazy story I can’t sleep anyway. And anyways, today it is our last day together and I can rest tomorrow”, she replied.

Eva and I had been living in one room of the seminar hotel in Switzerland close to Zurich for the last two weeks. Our professor had leased those rooms. He initially told the participants that they would discuss the subject ‘violence’ as prospective psycho therapists - besides Eva this already included myself - in a self-awareness group. During my study time I had already participated in two of those seminars with other subjects and so I didn’t expect too much. However, our smart educator did not share with us that only half of those present were actually students. As a matter of fact he had people from his clinic participating in this course who were close to be released and who had therapeutically processed their most traumatic experiences. These people were instructed prior to their participation to under no circumstances inform us that they were patients. He intended to show us that by no means we would feel, act or think differently from humans that we would be treating later as patients. And he succeeded in fact because when he revealed his secret to us on the day before last, none of the students had been aware of this fact.

Until then Eva had never have imagined to have a sexual relationship with a woman, she told me. But a few days ago it did happen. I could seduce her and we spent the most beautiful hours together. Sharing the room helped me to open up and tell her my story during the subsequent nights.

“It is easier for me to talk about all that with a woman who also caresses me. The therapist is always so factual and quite distanced, that makes me shy.”

Thus I told her my adventures during three almost sleepless nights. I only left out one story. Eva did not learn about Kate and my vision of her death. Only the professor knew about that.

“You shot at a human being? And then Jan hit the gun out of your hand?” Eva looked at me with her mouth wide open.

“Yes, he was also shocked that I shot a human being who couldn’t defend himself”, I replied rather calmly.

“Later Jan got really in trouble because he was not supposed to have the gun on him. By the way, I was right with my suspicion that police wouldn’t have come if I had called them. Daniel had reached Jan already on Sunday evening when he was back from Hamburg. Jan understood immediately what Daniel passed on to him. Daniel first believed that I would deceive him once more. But then Daniel made the call and Jan alerted police at once. Nobody wanted to do anything on Sunday and neither on Monday. Jan was supposed to report the case first to police. Only when he ran to a judge’s office unannounced on Monday they started listening to him.”

“But why did you shoot Achim in particular and not Igor? He was the one who had you kidnapped.”

I looked at her with big eyes and shook my head. Why couldn’t she grasp that?

“It was Achim who beat me and wanted to kill me. Why is that so hard to understand?” The story became too complicated for Eva because she changed the subject.

“And how did you get into the clinic in Zurich?” Since she knew since yesterday that I also had been a patient and was not only here as part of my education she was eager to learn about this part of my life as well before we parted because time was running out. I told her what had happened in the clinic in Bonn.

“Since I was of unsound mind during the crime and since I could only get appropriate treatment in Switzerland I was allowed to get into the closed section of the hospital here. But apparently I also had some bonus with the justice department because I learned later that they had wanted to prosecute Igor for his crimes for a long time. But until then they could never bring forward enough evidence towards him.

Because they were so afraid that I could attack somebody else they brought me here by ambulance including a physician, a cop and two male nurses. I just laughed at them.”

“For how long have you been here?”

“For about six months. They did some more research here and actually found some medication that helps suppressing RSD for a while. Therefore they allowed me into open therapy already after a short while.”

“And where do you go from here?” she asked somewhat sad.

“Now I’ll return to Cologne for a while. If I don’t have to go to prison after my hearing in court because of my attack on Achim I will be allowed to pick up my studies at university again. I was back in Cologne during a one week therapy leave. I went to Jan. I was upset that I had caused him all that trouble. But he wasn’t mad at me at all. Only the gun he’s no longer allowed to keep. I then offered to him that he may punish me a little bit. And he graciously complied.” Eva looked at me a bit confused.

“With Jan together I then drove to Erich’s house to find out if my personal belongings in particular the papers from California were still there. They were in the attic. What a relief! I also used that trip to visit Igor in prison.”

“Now, please repeat that last bit?”

“Well, you heard right. I went to the prison where Igor serves his time. I visited him and talked in length with him.” Eva listened with her mouth wide open again.

“It was strange. I was really happy to see him. We just talked for the whole visitation hours like old friends.”

“Juliane, that guy had raped you, had tried to kill you and threw you to his bullies like a piece of meat to a pack of wolves – and you go to him and talk to him like with an old friend? Slowly I believe that you indeed suffer from the ‘
Stockholm Syndrome’
.” She was beside herself. The fact that she also used the term ‘
Stockholm Syndrome’
like the FBI official last year gave me to think for a moment. But I quickly dismissed this thought.

“Yes, friend is probably the better term. He never tried to kill me. On the contrary he protected me against this bully Achim. Unfortunately this pig survived my shot. Do you know what? That guy Achim is paraplegic and has an artificial anus now. The bullet mangled his entire interior. I didn’t know that the lower abdomen holds that many organs until police told me about it.” Eva’s eyes almost popped out.

“That sounds absolutely horrible. How can you be so cruel and full of hatred?”

“Well, my brain indeed tells me that I should feel sorry about it. But it was Achim who had wanted to kill me. Not Igor. Igor protected me against Achim. Yes, you are right, Igor had kidnapped me, he locked me up and he exposed me to these old farts in Bonn. But he also took care that I was respected. These old bastards were not to come close to me without wearing condoms. And then he even returned my purse. And do you know what was most important of all? I actually had allowed him to fuck me when we met for the first time. At Erich’s party. And after the sex party at the villa in Bonn it was me who seduced him. Igor had always respected me.”

“This kind of logic will always remain alien to me”, Eva replied and shook her head again. “Are you so traumatized that you try to protect even your biggest enemy?” I tried for a short while to convince her of my thoughts but then I realized that it was pointless.

“What did you guys talk about when you saw him in prison?” she inquired carefully.

“I thanked him for protecting me against Achim. Then I tried to find out how such a sensitive human could end up in such a profession like he did. Eva, Igor had trusted me. I’ve learned a lot from him.” I took a pause and I pondered whether I should end this conversation now. I felt that I kind of became spooky to her and she probably considered me being ‘crazy’.

“Even when you think now that I’ve gone crazy …” She looked perplex.

“How did you know that?”

“You forget that I have studied psychology once. And beside that afterwards I received a very effective training in learning about the insight of human nature, as you might have noticed.” I laughed out loud and she looked as if I had caught her. At least it helped to relax the situation again.

“Please don’t be mad at me.” I snuggled up to her and looked at her from below with my typical glance. Eva reacted as desired. Her eyes became teary.

“Keep on talking”, she whispered to me and rocked me in her arms.

“Thank you. I just had to talk about that without some psychiatrist sitting beside me, putting on a frown and noting everything down.  I do not understand how they reach their patients in this way. Should I have my own office one day I will surely show more interest in the human side of those who come to see me. Igor wasn’t like that all the time. I asked him how he had ‘acquired’ the Respihydrol. That really got him going. We had joked with one another prior to that. As I said, like old friends. He was a very good student of chemistry so they allowed him to transfer directly from high school to the University of Minsk. Today Minsk is the capital of Belarus. He didn’t even have to join the army like all the other boys after high school. He was to join the army after graduating from college and then become an officer like his father. However, at that time the Soviet Union began to fall apart. Within the shortest of time the academy closed down his faculty and he was let go, unemployed. Everything around him collapsed. Then it got worse. His mom died from simple pneumonia and his dad disappeared thereafter without leaving a trace. He had been stationed somewhere in Siberia and from there he never resurfaced. Eva, Igor was on the streets, didn’t have anything to his name, had nobody and was hungry. He became a beggar! At one point he followed a girl he liked. She was also looking for something that would help her survive. It was that bad in those times. So both of them came across a pimp and the girl was very beautiful. She immediately agreed to go along with him although she knew what she was facing. Igor just followed them. They let him do his thing probably because everybody had found his or her sad job in this way. One day Igor noticed that the women came back from specific tricks having great pain. Then he remembered a publication that he had come across during his time at the university. That was the one from Zurich in which the effects of RSD were described. He knew German from his high school times. He just mixed everything together which was quite simple because most of the individual drugs could be bought on any street corner. The right mixture ratio he got from the publication. So when he applied his ‘concoction’ to a woman – just as Horst did to me at Erich’s party – she came back euphorically from some tough orgies. Even when she bled from all orifices she was still quite spirited.”   This story was so overwhelming for Eva to listen to that she started shaking and retreated.

“Eva, you want to become a therapist and then you react so prudishly to such a petty little matter? Believe me when your clients start telling you their stories later on in life you’ll be listening to much worse stories.”

“You are right I shouldn’t tie myself too close to such stories and try to maintain a certain distance.”

“Igor then made a career with this recipe in his organization. In the beginning he was only responsible for monitoring the brothels and such dirty things like drugs. Because he was strong and had become rather ruthless over time he soon became the leader of his small group. That specific drug enabled him in the end to finally prevail. There were enough women, he said. With his concoction they were also able to accept ‘jobs’ that were more of a brutal nature. The women became also addicted on the one hand but they stayed more ‘resistant’ for his purposes other than when using heroine that rendered them ‘unusable’ much faster. That’s the way he put it, Eva.
‘To become unusable’
. What cynicism! Well, in this way he became what he is today.

“How can you stay so calm when you are telling me that”! Eva was quite restless on her seat.

“I asked Igor why he gave me this stuff. That was Horst, was his answer. He was always too greedy. Igor was okay with it because in that way he knew that he could tap me for himself and sell me. Then I still wanted to know from him what his intentions were when were to be released from prison.
‘The same as usual’
, he said without blinking twice.
‘I am successful as a pimp. When I give that up I’ll be dead. For that I’ve made myself too many enemies in that time.’
It will be hard for you to believe me what he told me then but I already knew before he had opened his mouth. What about me?
‘You belong to me’
he said.
‘You know that and when I get out of here I will get you to me again.’ ‘Will you beat me if I don’t come voluntarily?’
I continued to ask.
‘No, I don’t need to do that to you. We are too close for that. After all you know whom you belong to.’
We both knew that. He would not give up pursuing me when he was released from prison. But can’t you see? He is honest. I can’t be mad at him. Perhaps it is his way to express his love.”

“You poor thing! How much longer will he be serving time?” Eva wanted to know in horror.

“Six to eight years”, Otto had told me. “Depending on his behavior. But then he will be deported back to the Ukraine. Igor doesn’t know that yet. Over there they just wait for him ready to kill him. Because he had apparently convinced most of these women with lies that they would come to Germany. He had promised them that they could work here as domestic helpers. Then he took their passport away and they had to work for Horst and types alike.” It was about time to get up and to vacate the room. It was the last day of the seminar and the participants wanted to say good bye to one another. And I wanted to get some breakfast. Eva continued.