In this chap­ter of “Moth­er Night,” the pro­tag­o­nist reflects on the eerie famil­iar­i­ty of wak­ing up in prison and the rem­nants of his past life. He recalls a recent encounter with Bernard B. O’Hare, whose vom­it on the stairs serves as a metaphor­i­cal rep­re­sen­ta­tion of his own decay. After leav­ing his attic, he picks up a pawn from a chess set he once carved. As he moves through the build­ing, the stench of O’Hare’s mess lin­gered, inten­si­fy­ing his unease.

His jour­ney takes him to the door of Dr. Abra­ham Epstein, a Holo­caust sur­vivor. Upon knock­ing, Epstein hes­i­tant­ly opens the door, attired in paja­mas, and is imme­di­ate­ly tak­en aback by the pro­tag­o­nist’s pres­ence. The exchange reveals the protagonist’s urgent desire to stand tri­al in Israel for his pur­port­ed crimes against human­i­ty. Epstein, how­ev­er, is reluc­tant to assist, express­ing his mis­un­der­stand­ing of the pro­tag­o­nist’s moti­va­tions while high­light­ing the ten­sion between their shared his­to­ry and the dis­crim­i­na­tion faced by peo­ple like them.

Despite Epstein’s ini­tial dis­missal and frus­tra­tion, his elder­ly moth­er enters the scene, intrigued by the pro­tag­o­nist’s plea. Their con­ver­sa­tion reveals lay­ers of his­to­ry and trau­ma, draw­ing par­al­lels between the pro­tag­o­nist’s cur­rent state of paral­y­sis and the expe­ri­ences endured dur­ing the Holo­caust. Epstein’s moth­er, rec­og­niz­ing the protagonist’s des­per­ate need for account­abil­i­ty, urges her son to help, but he resists, assert­ing his dis­con­nec­tion from those seek­ing revenge.

Ulti­mate­ly, after some heat­ed exchanges, Epstein agrees to call someone—“Sam”—who may assist the pro­tag­o­nist. In the mean­time, the vul­ner­a­ble pro­tag­o­nist finds him­self ensnared in a web of mem­o­ries, illu­mi­nat­ing the last­ing impact of the atroc­i­ties he once wit­nessed and per­pet­u­at­ed. As the three “heroes” arrive to take him to offi­cials, he feels a sense of relief and a pecu­liar urge to final­ly con­front the con­se­quences of his actions, lead­ing to an unset­tling yet sig­nif­i­cant res­o­lu­tion to the night.