In July 1981 I moved to Berlin even though I knew no one there, had no job prospects, and could speak very little German. I was excited, apprehensive, and a little frightened (particularly of German guards in uniforms). As the train made its way through East Germany my mind was racing with images of the city I had seen only in my mind.  Those images were not of the divided city of the Cold War but rather of the last years of Weimar Berlin so vividly and provocatively portrayed by Christopher Isherwood. I decided to live there because I had to experience for myself the decadence and despair; I wanted to breathe the pungent air of the great Prussian city. I did  not expect to find Isherwood's Berlin intact -- I knew the war had destroyed so much of the city -- yet I suspected that vestiges of the prewar, pre-Nazi city were still there if one looked for them.
Passing through the Wall into West Berlin had less effect on me than speeding past the  Grunewald neighborhood where the "Landauers" had lived. As I disembarked at the seedy Zoo Station and saw the rather ugly postwar buildings and the ruin of the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, I had difficulty imagining that Isherwood had walked here countless times. The city must have looked and felt so different then. In fact, my initial days in Berlin were disappointing. So much had changed. There were several McDonald's restaurants on the Kurfürstendamm! This was not Isherwood's Berlin after all. Then, one day at dusk I set out from the city center, walking along Tauentzienstrasse, continuing down Kleiststrasse, until I arrived at Nollendorfplatz. I was in Isherwood's neighborhood. Without consulting my map, I found myself on Nollendorfstrasse -- the "deep solemn massive street" he observes from his window on the opening page of Goodbye to Berlin. As I walked on the wide sidewalk, noting the reflection of the street lamps on the damp cobblestone pavement, the "weak yel