Asher remembers asking his father about the sections of the paper he reads. His father says that he does not read the sports section because sports are from the “other side”. He says that they must be evil, because people get hurt and suffer. I think this is an allusion to how the Jews have been hurt throughout history. The main difference between Christianity and Judaism is that the Jews are still waiting for their messiah. They believe that there is no way their messiah could have already come, because there has never been a time in history when they weren’t being persecuted. Because Jews have always been constantly getting unfairly hurt, they believe that anything that hurts you is evil, even though it may be beneficial in many ways.
Now that Asher’s father lives in Vienna, Asher misses him more than ever. To feel closer to him, he draws pictures of him in many different settings and moods. Asher has always taken his father for granted. He thought that he wouldn’t miss him terribly, but he does and so does Asher’s mother. Asher realizes that all he has to do is tell his mother that he wants to go to Vienna, and they will go. He tries to say it multiple times, but he cannot bring himself to do it. He cannot allow himself to be taken to the “city that hates Jews”.
At school, Asher ignores the teacher and draws during class. The teacher doesn’t know what to do with him, and soon most of the other Ladover know that Asher is not studying. Asher’s father is very upset at this news, and he doesn’t know what to do about it. It is necessary that Asher study the Torah because in a couple of years, he will have his bar mitzvah and he’ll need to be able to read from the Torah. Everywhere he goes, he hears from people how much he is disappointing his father. “He was more in my life now than he had been before his journey”. (159).