After deciding that he cannot risk going back to the Berlin Boxing Club, Karl still boxes and trains out of habit, but his heart is no longer in it. One night, his mother comes down to his basement room. She tells him that she is aware that he has quit boxing but that she is certain that he will find a way to take it up again, because he is so committed. She also tells him that as distant and disapproving as his father often seems, his remoteness springs out of a concern that Karl become his own person, with his own interests.

Karl must accompany his father on an errand. His father has a Picasso and believes that he has found a dealer to sell it; with the money that they make from the sale, he tells Karl, they will be able to buy tickets to America, where he has some cousins who will sponsor them. However, he also believes that the dealer, a man named Kerner, is untrustworthy, which is why he has asked Karl to accompany him.

Kerner immediately strikes Karl as wily and slippery. After briefly admiring the Picasso, he tells Karl’s father that he will send them the money from Switzerland, where he is based.