Translated fiction: Aditi moves from Bangladesh to Kolkata. She’s haunted by memories of her sister

About 35 years ago, one of the older ladies in the family had seen Sudipta appear from behind the house late in the night, two days after she had disappeared. It seemed she emerged from the big pond and approached the house on foot, her long hair loose and her clothes sopping wet.

No one had thought to ask what the eyewitness was doing at the western window of the second floor at such an unearthly hour. The next day, when the fishermen cast their nets in the pond, they immediately found Sudipta with an earthen pitcher hung around her neck. She had sunk only about a dozen feet away from the bank, so it had not been necessary for them to cast their nets all over.

The elders knew that someone trying to drown herself by tying a pitcher around the neck would never venture far from the bank. The net that caught Sudipta was cast in a circle about 20 feet from the ghat and then pulled toward the bank. Soon, it latched on to something heavy for a moment, then came undone. The men felt something because of the movement of the rope in their hands. A young fisherman went into...

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