In Chap­ter 44 of Moth­er Night, the pro­tag­o­nist wakes in a prison, a place that feels odd­ly famil­iar yet filled with a sense of fore­bod­ing. The rem­nants of his past life seem to haunt the space, as though the echoes of old mem­o­ries are still cling­ing to him. His encounter with Bernard B. O’Hare, whose vom­it on the stairs serves as a metaphor for moral decay, lingers in his thoughts. O’Hare’s mess sym­bol­izes the protagonist’s own inter­nal rot, a reflec­tion of the degra­da­tion and loss of integri­ty he feels with­in him­self. As he walks through the build­ing, the lin­ger­ing stench of O’Hare’s mess inten­si­fies the nar­ra­tor’s dis­com­fort, rein­forc­ing the sense of decline in both his envi­ron­ment and psy­che. The pro­tag­o­nist, how­ev­er, tries to recon­nect with his past by pick­ing up a chess pawn he once carved, yet the brief moment of nos­tal­gia is cloud­ed by the over­whelm­ing ten­sion that defines his present real­i­ty.

His walk through the build­ing brings him to Dr. Abra­ham Epstein’s door. Epstein, a Holo­caust sur­vivor, opens it reluc­tant­ly, clear­ly star­tled by the unex­pect­ed pres­ence of the pro­tag­o­nist. The con­ver­sa­tion quick­ly reveals the protagonist’s urgent need to face the con­se­quences of his actions by stand­ing tri­al in Israel for crimes com­mit­ted dur­ing the war. Epstein, how­ev­er, is hes­i­tant, unable to com­pre­hend why the pro­tag­o­nist would seek such a tri­al. He strug­gles to under­stand the moti­va­tion behind a request that seems out of place giv­en their shared trau­mat­ic past. The ten­sion between them grows, as Epstein won­ders why any­one who has lived through the hor­rors of war would seek to con­front their past head-on, ques­tion­ing the pro­tag­o­nist’s true inten­tions. This exchange under­scores the com­plex­i­ty of their relationship—one shaped by the trau­ma they both car­ry but fil­tered through very dif­fer­ent lens­es of guilt and respon­si­bil­i­ty.

Despite Epstein’s ini­tial refusal to engage, the entry of his elder­ly moth­er shifts the con­ver­sa­tion. She, sens­ing the protagonist’s des­per­a­tion, urges her son to help, see­ing in him the need for redemp­tion that comes with con­fronting the past. Their dia­logue sheds light on the dif­fi­cult choic­es sur­vivors of trau­ma face, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the after­math of atroc­i­ties like the Holo­caust. Epstein’s moth­er rec­og­nizes that the protagonist’s request is not sim­ply about seek­ing jus­tice but also about find­ing a way to rec­on­cile with the guilt he has car­ried for so long. How­ev­er, Epstein resists, argu­ing that he can­not align him­self with those who seek vengeance or moral abso­lu­tion through tri­al. His refusal is a tes­ta­ment to the emo­tion­al wounds of sur­vivors, who often feel dis­con­nect­ed from those seek­ing clo­sure. His actions reflect the painful com­plex­i­ty of trau­ma, where seek­ing jus­tice for past wrongs can be a deeply per­son­al and con­flict­ed deci­sion.

As the con­ver­sa­tion esca­lates, the pro­tag­o­nist becomes more des­per­ate, push­ing Epstein to make a deci­sion. After a heat­ed exchange, Epstein reluc­tant­ly agrees to con­tact some­one named “Sam” who may be able to assist the pro­tag­o­nist in his quest for account­abil­i­ty. This moment marks a piv­otal shift for the pro­tag­o­nist, open­ing the door to a long-await­ed con­fronta­tion with his past. As he waits for Sam to arrive, mem­o­ries of past atroc­i­ties resur­face, each one adding to the weight of his guilt and forc­ing him to con­front the real­i­ty of what he has done. These mem­o­ries, though painful, serve as an inescapable reminder of the atroc­i­ties he wit­nessed and, in some cas­es, per­pet­u­at­ed. They remind him that he can no longer escape the respon­si­bil­i­ty that he has tried to sup­press. The arrival of the three “heroes,” who are tasked with tak­ing him to the offi­cials, brings a sense of relief, but it is not a relief born of peace—it is one that car­ries the heavy bur­den of impend­ing con­fronta­tion. As he pre­pares to face the con­se­quences of his past actions, the pro­tag­o­nist feels the pres­sure mount­ing, know­ing that this is a step toward a reck­on­ing he has long avoid­ed. The chap­ter ends with a pow­er­ful sense of unease, mark­ing the begin­ning of the protagonist’s long-delayed con­fronta­tion with his own guilt and the con­se­quences of his actions.