In this chap­ter of “Moth­er Night,” the nar­ra­tor reflects on the recent death of Laz­lo Szom­bat­hy, a man who had tak­en his own life using a rope meant for the nar­ra­tor. Szom­bat­hy, a Hun­gar­i­an Free­dom Fight­er who had killed his broth­er, Mik­los, in Hun­gary, lament­ed his inabil­i­ty to prac­tice as a vet­eri­nar­i­an in Amer­i­ca. He expressed bit­ter­ness over what he per­ceived as the illu­so­ry nature of free­dom in the Unit­ed States. Before his demise, he left a note indi­cat­ing a belief that he pos­sessed a method to cure can­cer, a claim that Amer­i­can doc­tors dis­missed as absurd.

The nar­ra­tor recounts wak­ing up in a cel­lar, fur­nished for the infa­mous Iron Guard, belong­ing to Dr. Lionel J. D. Jones, D.D.S. The atmos­phere is punc­tu­at­ed by the sound of a print­ing press run­ning copies of “The White Chris­t­ian Min­ute­man” and the rhyth­mic bang­ing of tar­get prac­tice. Fol­low­ing a beat­ing, the nar­ra­tor received care from Dr. Abra­ham Epstein, and after some delib­er­a­tion, Dr. Jones was sought for assis­tance, trust­ed by Resi, the nar­ra­tor’s com­pan­ion. The chap­ter hints at a web of con­spir­a­to­r­i­al ele­ments sur­round­ing the narrator’s safe­ty, with Resi voic­ing con­cerns about being pur­sued, par­tic­u­lar­ly by the Jews, indi­cat­ing that there is a seri­ous threat tied to the nar­ra­tor’s past actions.

Amidst this chaot­ic back­drop, Jones’ chauf­feur, referred to as the Black Fuehrer of Harlem, serves the nar­ra­tor break­fast and offers sage advice. The nar­ra­tor grap­ples with the idea that the state of Israel is inter­est­ed in appre­hend­ing him, akin to the cap­ture of Adolf Eich­mann. The chauf­feur stark­ly con­veys the mod­ern might of Israel, rais­ing con­cerns that the impli­ca­tions of the nar­ra­tor’s past could be far-reach­ing.

Resi express­es the con­sen­sus that for the nar­ra­tor’s safe­ty, the best course of action is to flee the coun­try. Plans are set into motion for the nar­ra­tor to recov­er and escape via an arranged flight to an undis­closed loca­tion where they can start anew. This chap­ter encap­su­lates themes of para­noia, iden­ti­ty, and the com­plex­i­ties of safe­ty in a world rid­dled with the ram­i­fi­ca­tions of past lives.