Goodbye To Berlin

Sally meets Isherwood through their mutual friend, Fritz Wendel. She is an English actress who would like to one day be famous and wealthy. Isherwood describes her thus: 

I noticed that her fingernails were painted emerald green, a colour unfortunately chosen, for it called attention to her hands, which were much stained by cigarette-smoking and as dirty as a little girl’s. She was dark enough to be Fritz’s sister. Her face was long and thin, powdered dead white. She had very large brown eyes which should have been darker, to match her hair and the pencil she used for her eyebrows (24-25). 

Despite this somewhat unflattering description, Isherwood thinks Sally is a beautiful woman. Sally often eschews expectations of what is expected or “proper” for her, as she loves discussing lascivious gossip, talking at length with Isherwood about current and former lovers. Despite having many lovers, Sally often laments never being able to keep a man. Though she leads an outwardly decadent lifestyle—often putting on airs for the sake of others—she is still young, somewhat immature, and easily duped. She is happy to have Isherwood for a friend and not a lover. It seems that Sally often has many shallow relationships with men but very few deep relationships based on friendship, rather than a contrived idea of love.

Bernhard is Natalia Landauer’s cousin. Bernhard manages the family store, Landauers’, and is business partners with Natalia’s father, Herr Landauer. Isherwood first meets Bernhard at lunch with Herr and Frau Landauer. Isherwood describes Bernhard as “smooth and pale and politely enigmatic” (149). Much of the chapter about the Landauers is devoted to deciphering the enigma that is Bernhard Landauer. Throughout the novel, Bernhard is soft-spoken and accommodating, but there is an undercurrent of restlessness to his character. Natalia describes Bernhard’s attitude as sarcastic; later on, Isherwood interprets Bernhard’s behavior as arrogant and condescending.

Bernhard often seems exhausted, both physically and spiritually. It is later revealed that Bernhard hasn’t spoken “intimately” with another person in a very long time, which may explain why others interpret his reticence and self-amused expressions as sarcasm and arrogance. Bernhard feels trapped by his family’s materialism and believes he is a slave to the family business, Landauers’. As these problems weigh on him, Bernhard’s grip on reality becomes tenuous. He starts to doubt that Landauers’ even exists and he begins to regard the escalating political situation in Berlin as trivial. Bernhard is a tragically doomed character. He is emotionally closed-off from the rest of the world. When he confides in Isherwood his family’s history and jokes about running away to China with Isherwood, we can see Bernhard trying desperately to escape his situation. The pressure of being so tightly bottled up threatens to undo him.

Natalia behaves as a kind of “bossy elder sister” (164) to Isherwood, even though she is only 18 years old. In this way, she behaves similarly to Sally Bowles. In almost every other way, however, she is a foil to Sally. She enjoys talking to Isherwood about art and literature, recommending him books to read and confronting him when she thinks he is being dishonest about his opinions. She doesn’t care at all for Sally’s gossip when the two meet at a café, as Natalia is much more quiet and reserved. While Sally looks more outwardly mature, Natalia attempts to:

make herself look more grown-up—with the result that she appeared merely rather dowdy. The long townified dress she’d put on didn’t suit her at all. On the side of her head, she had planted a little hat—an unconscious parody of Sally’s page-boy cap. But Natalia’s hair was much too fuzzy for it: it rode the waves like a half-swamped boat on the rough sea (160).

Natalia’s relationship with Isherwood dissolves because Isherwood has chosen Sally to fill the role of “elder sister.” Unlike Sally, Natalia is able to find love: she moves to Paris and marries a French doctor. Natalia’s marriage is important because it is not only another delineation between her and Sally, but it is the very thing that saves Natalia from the same fate as her cousin, Bernhard. If she had not moved safely to another country, she likely would have faced similar death threats to those that Bernhard faced.

Otto is a young, working-class boy from Berlin. Isherwood meets Otto while staying at a beach house on Ruegen Island. When Isherwood first meets Otto, he says, “Otto has a face like a very ripe peach. His hair is fair and thick, growing low on his forehead. He has small sparkling eyes, full of naughtiness, and a wide, disarming grin, which is much too innocent to be true” (78). Otto seems very aware of his own physicality and sexuality, choosing to spend many of his nights dancing and flirting during his stay on Ruegen Island, as well as leading Peter Wilkinson along. Similarly to Sally Bowles, Otto has had many admirers. Otto often behaves selfishly and childishly: he leaves Ruegen Island suddenly and unexpectedly after sponging up as much of Peter’s money as possible, only to blame Peter for leaving him all alone. He mocks his sister and mother at home, and he has no motivation to work or pursue a direction with his own life. Otto is prone to lapses of depression because of this lack of direction. Despite these flaws, Otto cares deeply for his family: he makes sure Peter sends them money from Ruegen Island and takes Isherwood to visit his mother at the sanatorium.

Frau Nowak is Otto’s mother. She offers Isherwood a place to stay when she discovers he is looking for a new room to rent, but she is very conscious about her family’s poverty. She is embarrassed that Isherwood will be unaccustomed to their lifestyle. She is the glue holding the Nowak family together, but the stressful conditions of her family’s constant arguing, the suffocating living arrangements, and the family’s lack of money exacerbate her illness. When she leaves the family’s cramped apartment for the sanatorium, Isherwood is surprised to see how much younger she looks and acts. It’s clear that Frau Nowak misses her family while she is away. Otto, whom she had a particularly tumultuous relationship with prior, is the only one to visit her at the sanatorium.

Frl. Schroder is Isherwood’s landlady. She considers Isherwood to be a gentleman and is very fond of him. She is particularly involved in the lives of her tenants and tends to know all of the gossip surrounding them. Frl. Schroeder is often a comical character, from her gossipy dialogue, to her flirtations with Bobby, to her concern over the size of her bust, to her slapstick antics. She is a mother figure to Isherwood and can be protective of him at times.

Isherwood meets Peter while staying at the beach house on Ruegen Island and the two quickly become friends. Isherwood describes him as “thin and dark and nervous. He wears horn-rimmed glasses. When he gets excited he digs his hands down between his knees and clenches them together” (78). Peter is infatuated with Otto Nowak. He pines over Otto but is passive-aggressive toward him during much of their interactions together because of Otto’s constant flirting with other people. Peter feels powerless to change things in his life; instead, he waits for some outside force to act on him.

Frl. Mayr is a tenant of Frl. Schroeder. She and Frl. Schroeder consult tarot cards and fortunetellers together. Frl. Schroeder doesn’t especially like Frl. Mayr, but she “stands in great awe of her” (10). Frl. Mayr is an outspoken Nazi and often makes anti-Semitic remarks that irk Isherwood.

Bobby is a tenant of Frl. Schroeder. Isherwood doesn’t know Bobby’s real name. Bobby is a drink mixer at a west-end bar called Troika. Bobby flirts heavily with Frl. Schroeder and has an affair with Frl. Kost. Isherwood says, “Like most barmen, Bobby is a great expert on sexual questions” (13). Bobby eventually loses his job and Isherwood comments that “people like Bobby are their jobs—take the job away and they partially cease to exist” (187).

Frl. Kost is a tenant of Frl. Schroeder. Though Frl. Kost is a prostitute, Frl. Schroeder has no moral objections to what she does for a living, but will often use Frl. Kost’s profession against her when she’s angry.

Klaus is one of Sally Bowles’s lovers. He used to accompany Sally as a pianist when she sang at the Lady Windermere. Klaus leaves Sally for a job in England, eventually reporting back that he met another woman there. Sally discovers she is pregnant with Klaus’s child and has an abortion, deciding not to tell Klaus about it.