The novel opens with Christopher Isherwood, our narrator, looking out of his window, noting scenes of city life in Berlin. He is an Englishman and feels alone in the foreign city. Isherwood describes Frl. Schroeder, his landlady, who is about 55 years old and calls him “Herr Issyvoo.” At one point in time, Frl. Schroeder used to be an independently wealthy woman and was very picky about people she took in as lodgers. Frl. Schroeder now has no room of her own in her own house; she sleeps in the living room behind a screen. Frl. Schroeder has heard that Isherwood was once a medical student and confides in him that she is unhappy about size of her bosom and the strain it puts on her heart.

There are four other lodgers staying in the flat with Isherwood: Frl. Kost, Frl. Mayr, Bobby, and a commercial traveler. Frl. Kost is a prostitute, Bobby is a mixer at a west-end bar called the Troika, and Frl. Mayr is a music-hall jodlerin. Isherwood rarely sees the commercial traveler at all.

Bobby is rather intimate with Frl. Schroder. He often tickles her and slaps her bottom.