Excerpt of A Trace Of Smoke by Rebecca Cantrell

Echoes of my footfalls faded into the damp air of the Hall
of the Unnamed Dead as I paused to stare at the framed
photograph of a man. He was laid out against a riverbank,
dark slime wrapped around his sculpted arms and legs. Even
through the paleness and rigidity of death, his face was
beautiful. A small, dark mole graced the left side of his
cleft chin. His dark eyebrows arched across his forehead
like bird wings, and his long hair, dark now with water,
streamed out behind him.Watery morning light from high
windows illuminated the neat grid of black-and-white
photographs lining the walls of the Alexanderplatz police
station. One hundred frames displayed the faces and postures
of Berlin’s most recent unclaimed dead. Every Monday the
police changed out the oldest photographs to make room for
the latest editions of those who carried no identification,
as was too often the case in Berlin since the Great War.My
eyes darted to the words under the photograph that had
called to me. Fished from the water by a sightseeing boat
the morning of Saturday, May 30, 1931—the day before
yesterday. Apparent cause of death: stab wound to the heart.
Under distinguishing characteristics they listed a
heart-shaped tattoo on his lower back that said “Father.” No
identification present.

I needed none. I knew the face as well as my own, or my
sister Ursula’s, with our square jaws and cleft chins. I
wore my dark blond hair cut short into a bob, but he wore
his long, like our mother, like any woman of a certain age,
although he was neither a woman nor of a certain age. He was
my baby brother, Ernst.