In the chap­ter from *Moth­er Night*, the pro­tag­o­nist vis­its George Kraft in Jones’ base­ment, where Kraft is fir­ing at a tar­get resem­bling a car­i­ca­ture of a cig­ar-smok­ing Jew. The tar­get, drawn by the pro­tag­o­nist back in 1941, depicts dis­turb­ing imagery with the Jew stand­ing on bro­ken cross­es and hold­ing sym­bols of greed and decep­tion. The pro­tag­o­nist reflects on his sur­prise at the pop­u­lar­i­ty of the tar­get among the Nazi ranks, acknowl­edg­ing its crude and offen­sive exe­cu­tion. Despite his pre­vi­ous inten­tions to empha­size his loy­al­ty to the regime, the out­come was iron­i­cal­ly suc­cess­ful, evi­denced by com­men­da­tion from high-rank­ing offi­cials like Hein­rich Himm­ler.

As Kraft con­tin­ues to miss the tar­get with a com­i­cal­ly under­pow­ered Luger, a con­ver­sa­tion begins between the two men. Kraft learns the pro­tag­o­nist is up and about fol­low­ing an ear­li­er inci­dent, and they dis­cuss the poten­tial for per­son­al growth derived from recent upheavals in their lives. Kraft feels that their unfor­tu­nate cir­cum­stances might lead to greater artis­tic insight, claim­ing that he will be a bet­ter painter as a result of expe­ri­enc­ing the vibrant trop­ics, a place he desires to explore.

The dia­logue touch­es on themes of friend­ship and loy­al­ty, par­tic­u­lar­ly when Kraft express­es a will­ing­ness to join the pro­tag­o­nist on his jour­ney, stat­ing that after los­ing his wife, he finds val­ue only in gen­uine con­nec­tions. This heart­felt cama­raderie reveals a shift in Kraft’s pur­pose, lead­ing him to embrace the idea of sup­port­ing the pro­tag­o­nist and leav­ing his past behind. The rela­tion­ship between the char­ac­ters deep­ens, high­light­ing shared strug­gles and the mean­ing of true friend­ship in a chaot­ic world, as Kraft asserts his com­mit­ment to trav­el along with the pro­tag­o­nist, wher­ev­er fate may lead. This theme res­onates through their con­ver­sa­tion, mark­ing a piv­otal moment in their lives.