Following the long tradition of converting incomprehensible numbers into slightly less incomprehensible scenarios, one brochure states that the brown coal mined here would form a girdle twenty-nine feet high and thirty-three feet wide around the Earth’s equator. Include the overburden moved to get to the coal and the quantity doubles. It was an unusual 1:1 ratio in this valley: 1.4 billion cubic meters of pure coal to 1.4 billion cubic meters of pure overburden. “A lot,” as a friend commented flatly.

The mine saw the German Empire fall, World War I and Hitler’s thousand-year-empire come and go; it produced a peak output of 41.1 million tons per year in 1957 during the long half-century division of Germany. It had consumed sixteen whole villages and parts of two more towns forcing the relocation of 12,500 people. The mine had lived a full life, in other words. But the story of all mining is the story of finitude, and on June 30, 1993, mining officially ended in the Hostage Valley. With the coal, support industries, ancillary chemical production, and much of everything here except farming ended or nearly ended. What was left was an enormous barren hole — a man-made valley — much too large to fill back in with dirt. Thus, The Hostage Valley Lake, begun June 30, 2003, exactly ten years after the end of mining. Dozens of small mines have been filled with water and left for bathing and recreation in the Middle German Coal District, but the Hostage is by far the biggest, covering eleven and a half square miles to a maximum depth of 260 feet. As deep as that sounds, lot of people are banking on just a few more feet.

Before I took the official tour with Hoss, I toured the lake myself, continued interviewing people, tried to grasp what I saw. Signs of change were everywhere, literally: signs all along the elevated shore road advertised hiking trails and a marina and camping grounds. I wondered how much of that existed yet.

I walked from the silent village of Mücheln, through a corrugated steel tunnel under the main road, past a spray painted mural of a filled lake and happy waterfront community, and into the actual valley, remarkably green, boldly panoramic, promising. A sparkling expanse of water spread out far below, and an uncompleted landscape kept me from getting to it. This descent was an area unto itself, one with the quality many have come to know from marginal new subdivisions, that eroded, rutted-and-trenched landscape of partially germinated grass, desiccated bushes, exposed PVC drain pipes and retention mesh.

Two new buildings and a 15 x 20 mobile stage with orange nylon tarpaulin stood near water’s edge. Both buildings were predictably, almost maddeningly modern German: humble and rectilinear; putty gray and same-same. One appeared to draw some influence from a tower, be it lighthouse or something else, it wasn’t clear. Past this stood the concession, gray and low with a large shaded area dotted by sturdy tables and chairs. Both buildings suggested a conceptual austerity intending not to distract from the panoramic view beyond. But they failed because they are the only visible structures. That is, except a wooden watchtower poking ominously above the trees across the water.

At the waterfront, looking down the face of the rusting steel retainer wall, I saw an industrial looking shoreline with retarded plant growth, brown water lilies, and a bottle floating on its side. It seemed the water still had twenty feet to rise before the massive boat crane to my left would be needed. Looking up — looking out — across the wind-chapped lake to the chemical plants on the horizon, I couldn’t help but feel that twenty feet won’t ever be enough to make this place blossom with ruddy-cheeked tourists. At the same time, it was hard to imagine that, since they had built it, no one would come.

In fact, they already had come. Kind of.

A few older tourists moved from window to window as if to wonder what and where and when and why. I watched their confusion with interest, waiting for an opportunity to approach and interview them without worsening their disorientation. Long haul cyclists glided in silently from across the promenade. They parked their bikes and strolled bandy-legged in cleats to the railing to look out at the water. After a while, an articulated, six-wheeled peddle vehicle approached, swerving millipede-like, and parked by the stage. It was low like a go-kart, made of red tubular steel, and peddled by four driver-slash-passengers: one of the two older couples paused momentarily from a running disagreement of some sort. The women tucked errant strands of hair back under her hat before being the first to stand up. “Wo willst du denn hin, Ulf?” she asked her husband. “Sag’s mir! Wo willst du denn hin? Where do you want to go, then, Ulf? Tell me, where?