Light At The End Of The Tunnel

LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL                                                 Janine Hallett

The plane was about to land, “Thank God”, I thought, after a 17 hour flight the thought of landing sounded fantastic.

We were arriving at Hannover Airport to visit our friend Heinz. We hadn’t seen Heinz for five years, since he had moved back to Germany after living in Perth for ten years. We had become firm friends with him, enjoyed his wild antics, we got used to knowing that when you were with Heinz, “things happened”. He never lost his German accent and we had a lot of laughs trying to interpret his pronunciations of words – like when he said “Come on, time for the pup!” Which we learned after a while he was inviting us to have a drink with him at the local pub!.

After going through the normal routine of getting through customs etc, we finally saw Heinz waiting to greet us in the passenger terminal. He was as cheerful as usual and welcomed us with open arms. Unloading our luggage at his house, which was another experience being with Heinz, as his house was a complete hoarders paradise. Junk everywhere, he was an accumulator of everything – bald as a badger, he had seven bottles of shampoo in his bathroom, boxes of old jam bottles and everything else you could imagine stacked up in his laundry, his pantry had every brand of sauces, sprays, soup mixes, whatever, sitting there waiting “Just in Case!”.

The local “pup” was just down the road from his house, so I suggested the two men, Mike, my husband, and Heinz take a walk to the “pup” while I got things organised for dinner and then meet them there shortly. This suggestion was of course welcomed and off they went, laughing and reminiscing about the fun they had enjoyed together over the years.

After preparing the dinner, which wasn’t difficult as there was so much produce to choose from, I wandered down to the “pup” to join them. They had been enjoying the company of Heinz’s friends and had consumed several glasses of German Beer, along with one or two Schnapps! Needless to say, the night was already becoming very merry. I quickly joined in and it wasn’t long before we were all laughing and having a wow of a time. One of Heinz’s friends, Deiter, approached me, and in a very friendly manner, offered me a little plastic package.

“Just for you”, he said in his very strong German accent. I looked at him and smiled, and wasn’t sure what the package contained. Mike came over when he saw I was being offered a gift, he took one look at it and recognising it was marijuana very pleasantly replied to Deiter “Oh thank you, but we don’t use this – keep it for yourself.” Deiter was determined to give us his “gift”, so Mike whispered to me, “Take it and we’ll offload it later”. I did as he suggested and the night continued on with more schnapps and beers. Staggering back to Heinz house, sitting down to struggle to eat the dinner I had prepared, Mike suddenly sat up, as if a light had just gone off in his head, and said – “Hey what did that bloke give you?’ I remembered and fossicked in my handbag to find the little plastic bag – “Phew, that was lucky you remembered it” – we were leaving for Singapore the next evening!! Could be facing serious consequences!!

So our holiday continued in the same jovial way the next day, after the three of us recovered from the fun and games the evening before. Heinz wanted to take us to the underground mine he had recently visited. He said it was even more fascinating to see than “Check Point Charlie”. ..they take you by train and then off load onto a submarine to view all the deep underwater sights. We were a bit hesitant, hey, being in Berlin wasn’t something you do everyday, and the thought of being thousands of feet underground, then underwater, instead of seeing the sights of the famous city wasn’t our original plan. However, Heinz was insistent, so off we went. Must say the trip to the mine was quite interesting, and when we arrived, we were welcomed by the director of the tour, who spoke three languages, addressing all the participants doing the tour in their respective lingo  – that on it’s own was quite impressive. We were given bright yellow hard hats and life jackets and started the journey on a little mono rail train. The mine had quite significant history of the part it played during the war, along with very impressive statistics of the minerals and valuable crystals it produced. We were enjoying the tour, and mixed well with the other tourists, having a few laughs and gaining some interesting facts. The tunnel was virtually pitch black, no lights at all. However, the tour guide had a worthwhile flash light and on the advice from Heinz, we had pocketed a couple of little hand torches, so we had some light which helped us to see the quite spectacular stalactites etc. After touring the mine, we were put in line and clamboured onto the ladder taking us to the entrance of the submarine. Not much room, but immediately the underwater view was amazing.

The submarine was moving along quite smoothly, when suddenly we hit a couple of fairly significant bumps, I lunged forward with one, and Mike had to grab my coat to stop me from going over. A couple of other tourists became a bit alarmed, but the guide appeared to not be concerned. There were a few sideways looks amongst the tourists, but we had faith in the guide, who translated to us that there was no immediate danger, everything was under control. Until, bam, bam!! The submarine stopped with a ferocious lurch, throwing some of the passengers to the tiny floor between the seats.

All the lights went out – no torches were working and the guide’s big flashlight went completely blank, Total darkness and a lot of chatter and questions being thrown to the guide – things settled slightly and the guide tried to contact the tour organisers via the radio. This didn’t appear to work very well either. Time went on, people were beginning to get very concerned. 

Sitting in total darkness, no light whatsoever, is not an experience for the faint hearted. Finally, the tour guide announced that there was maintenance being done and the submarine should resume function again and lights which are normally through the water tunnel would be coming on in another five hours or so! Oh My God!!! Apart from being stranded in pitch darkness, in a little submarine, no food, very little water and having a flight scheduled in four hours time, wasn’t a fantastic situation to be in.

The guide continued and tried to address all the passengers in their own language, being calming and convincing, that the light at the end of the tunnel would be coming on a bit sooner than the five hours anticipated, so all should be good! Fantastic, that made us all feel much better – NOT!

So, as good Germans do, they maintained their sense of humour and common sense, and began to play “Eye Spy” – this of course worked well in the pitch black, but it did create a bit of a laugh and the time moved on slowly. We endured two hours, and then things became quite difficult. People were getting bored, restless, some needing the bathroom – major inconvenience, however, when there is no light, it was an exercise that was made reasonably private, difficult though, trying to find a spsot that allowed for discretion and comfort to fellow passengers in terms of not getting wet!

We endured the experience as best we could, hoping that the maintenance report was accurate and anticipating things come to life again sooner than expected. To our great joy, after four hours – longest four hours of our lives – longer than a 17 hour plane flight – the light at the end of the tunnel flickered a few times, then came on full bore. Wow, everyone jumped, eyes burst to life with the blinding light that hadn’t been around for too long, then to our utter delight, the submarine began to splutter to life. Shouts of exhilaration, hands clapping, tears of joy – the whole works jumped as the submarine began to move closer to the ladder that would get us on board the little train again and let us get back onto open land.

Finally we reached the little train and passengers began to get off the submarine and back onto the train – Mike put his arm around me and said, “See nothing’s changed, things happen when you’re with Heinz.”

Blindingly we all clambered out of the train, facing the light of day. Passengers said their goodbyes, some hugs and handshakes went on in collaboration of an experience not to be forgotten.

So we still talk about our journey in the mine with Heinz and experiencing the true meaning of the “Light At The End of The Tunnel.”