Chap­ter 21 delves deeply into the narrator’s com­plex friend­ship with Heinz Schild­knecht, his clos­est com­pan­ion dur­ing the war. The nar­ra­tor reflects on the begin­nings of their bond, admit­ting that he bor­rowed Heinz’s motor­cy­cle, rather than steal­ing it, an act that sym­bol­izes the inti­mate and some­times prob­lem­at­ic nature of their friend­ship. Their rela­tion­ship evolved as they nav­i­gat­ed per­son­al strug­gles, par­tic­u­lar­ly fol­low­ing the narrator’s mar­i­tal dif­fi­cul­ties. Many of their con­ver­sa­tions took place late at night, often accom­pa­nied by alco­hol, which served as both a cat­a­lyst for their emo­tion­al open­ness and a means of escape from the harsh real­i­ties sur­round­ing them.

In one of their dis­cus­sions, Heinz makes an unset­tling con­fes­sion, reveal­ing that he loved his motor­cy­cle more than he ever loved his wife. This star­tling admis­sion prompts the nar­ra­tor to ques­tion Heinz’s per­spec­tive, but Heinz, with unde­ni­able sin­cer­i­ty, insists on the truth of his feel­ings. He explains that his devo­tion to his motor­cy­cle came at the cost of his wife and pos­ses­sions, high­light­ing the absur­di­ty and tragedy of their lives dur­ing wartime, where mate­r­i­al pos­ses­sions began to hold more sig­nif­i­cance than per­son­al rela­tion­ships. This reflec­tion serves as a stark com­men­tary on the dehu­man­iz­ing effects of war, where even emo­tion­al con­nec­tions are over­shad­owed by the need for sur­vival and the pur­suit of fleet­ing com­forts.

Heinz’s rev­e­la­tion that the loss of his wife left him with only his motor­cy­cle, which he had acquired on the black mar­ket, fur­ther illus­trates the emo­tion­al void he felt. He shares a mem­o­ry of being offered mon­ey for the motor­cy­cle, a moment that forced him to con­front the fact that mate­r­i­al pos­ses­sions had tak­en prece­dence over human rela­tion­ships in his life. This con­ver­sa­tion between the two friends then spi­rals into a broad­er reflec­tion on human nature, with Heinz assert­ing that peo­ple, in their essence, are all insane, dri­ven by irra­tional impuls­es that shape their lives. This idea cap­tures the mad­ness of their world, where san­i­ty and rea­son are often over­shad­owed by the chaos that sur­rounds them.

The nar­ra­tor con­tin­ues by describ­ing Heinz’s late wife, a woman con­sumed by the desire for suc­cess, who idol­ized those thriv­ing in posi­tions of power—individuals whose actions per­pet­u­at­ed destruc­tion and suf­fer­ing. This obses­sion with suc­cess, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the con­text of the war, fur­ther dis­torts the char­ac­ters’ per­cep­tion of val­ue, where achiev­ing suc­cess becomes syn­ony­mous with per­pet­u­at­ing harm. As the war nears its end, both Heinz and the nar­ra­tor strug­gle to escape the suf­fo­cat­ing envi­ron­ment of chaos and vio­lence, seek­ing refuge in their shared drink­ing spots. These places, once sites of com­fort and cama­raderie, had now become trans­formed into grim sym­bols of war, fur­ther rein­forc­ing the futil­i­ty and dev­as­ta­tion that per­me­at­ed every aspect of their lives.

In a moment of reflec­tion and a test of their friend­ship, the nar­ra­tor asks Heinz if he can bor­row the motor­cy­cle to vis­it his in-laws. Heinz’s trust in the nar­ra­tor is unwa­ver­ing, allow­ing him to take the motor­cy­cle with­out hes­i­ta­tion. How­ev­er, this act becomes sym­bol­ic, as the nar­ra­tor leaves for good, mark­ing the end of their deep con­nec­tion and a poignant farewell that encap­su­lates the emo­tion­al dis­tance that had grown between them over time. This depar­ture is not just a phys­i­cal one but also an emo­tion­al sev­er­ance, illus­trat­ing the inevitable break­down of rela­tion­ships in a world rav­aged by war.

The nar­ra­tor lat­er learns of Heinz’s fate through a report from the Haifa Insti­tute. It is revealed that Heinz now lives in Ire­land, work­ing as a groundskeep­er, and has become an expert on Hitler’s death. This news strikes the nar­ra­tor with both sad­ness and a sense of irony, reflect­ing on how their lives have diverged so dra­mat­i­cal­ly after the war. He ends the chap­ter with a bit­ter­sweet mes­sage to his long-lost friend, con­tem­plat­ing the absur­di­ty of their lives and the harsh real­i­ties that war imposed on their per­son­al con­nec­tions. Through this explo­ration of friend­ship, loss, and the impact of war, the chap­ter offers a sur­re­al and haunt­ing reflec­tion on the human con­di­tion, encap­su­lat­ing the absur­di­ty of their exis­tence amid the dev­as­ta­tion they endured.