The Landlady

Berlin, May 1923 When people don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow, they don’t care how they behave today. Seven years before she ever heard the names Christopher Isherwood or Sally Bowles, Margareta Thurau is living life to the full. Or so she thinks. Life is good in her second-floor apartment on Nollendorfstrasse in the heart of Berlin’s Schöneberg, but in the streets below society is tearing itself apart. The currency is crashing, inflation is soaring and no one knows what will happen next. The war may have ended five years ago, but battles are still being fought daily on the streets of Berlin. The bold new Weimar Republic is on its knees and a succession of failed governments have fixed nothing. A week is no time at all in Berlin, and for Margareta and her neighbours in Nollendorfstrasse 17, this week will change their lives for ever.