In the chap­ter “MY BEST FRIEND …” from *Moth­er Night*, the nar­ra­tor reflects on his rela­tion­ship with Heinz Schild­knecht, his clos­est friend in Ger­many dur­ing the tumul­tuous war peri­od. The nar­ra­tor begins with an admis­sion, express­ing that he bor­rowed rather than stole Heinz’s motor­cy­cle. Their friend­ship deep­ened dur­ing their post-mar­i­tal strug­gles, with late-night con­ver­sa­tions often fueled by alco­hol.

Dur­ing one such con­ver­sa­tion, Heinz con­fides that he loves his motor­cy­cle more than he loved his wife, a con­fes­sion that moves the nar­ra­tor to refute such a claim. Yet Heinz insists on the truth of his feel­ings, high­light­ing the depths of his despair as he reveals sac­ri­fices he made for cig­a­rettes that led to the loss of his wife and pos­ses­sions. This dynam­ic show­cas­es the absur­di­ty and tragedy of their war-torn exis­tence, where mate­r­i­al objects began to hold greater sig­nif­i­cance than human con­nec­tions.

Heinz shares that los­ing his wife left him with noth­ing but a motor­cy­cle, a black-mar­ket item. He recalls the offer he received for the motor­cy­cle, which forced him to con­front his pri­or­i­ti­za­tion of mate­r­i­al over emo­tion­al attach­ments. This con­ver­sa­tion leads to a larg­er dis­cus­sion about human nature, with Heinz assert­ing that all peo­ple are inher­ent­ly insane and act with­out rea­son.

The nar­ra­tive fur­ther describes Heinz’s late wife, who was obsessed with suc­cess sto­ries, seem­ing to cel­e­brate those thriv­ing in posi­tions that per­pet­u­at­ed suf­fer­ing and destruc­tion. As the war nears its end, Heinz and the nar­ra­tor strug­gle to find refuge from the chaos that has tak­en over their lives, poignant­ly illus­trat­ed by their shared drink­ing spots turn­ing into accou­trements of war.

Even­tu­al­ly, the nar­ra­tor feels com­pelled to test the strength of their friend­ship by ask­ing to bor­row Heinz’s motor­cy­cle for a vis­it to his in-laws. Heinz’s unwa­ver­ing trust cul­mi­nates in the nar­ra­tor tak­ing the motor­cy­cle and leav­ing for good, mark­ing a poignant and bit­ter farewell.

In the after­math, the nar­ra­tor learns of Heinz’s fate through the Haifa Insti­tute, dis­cov­er­ing that Heinz is now a ground-keep­er in Ire­land and an expert on Hitler’s death. The nar­ra­tor con­cludes with a fond but bit­ter­sweet mes­sage to his long-lost friend, mus­ing on the absur­di­ty of their lives and the real­i­ties of war. Through this com­plex reflec­tion on friend­ship and loss, the chap­ter encap­su­lates the sur­re­al expe­ri­ences that defined their exis­tence against a back­drop of dev­as­ta­tion.