Summary

Chapters 20 - 22 – Chapter 20 provides another brief glimpse of the evolution of the grandfather’s relationship with Sally Sichel, who was an accomplished painter. A brief scene of dialogue shows that she and the grandfather were quite comfortable and fairly sexually active with each other. In Chapter 21, the grandfather tells the narrator that he left his platoon to go track down von Braun. During this mission, he came to the German military base at the town of Nordhausen, but he does not want to give details about it. Thus, in Chapter 22, the narrator takes it upon himself to research Nordhausen, and he finds out that it was a center for both rocket manufacturing and forced labor drawn from the nearby concentration camp. This center was called the Mittelwerk. The narrator realizes that when his grandfather arrived at Nordhausen, his grandfather must have then comprehended...