"The Haunting of Bera"
"The Haunting of Bera" In the village of Karamja, in Pabna, there lived a young woman named Asma. She was in the last days of her pregnancy, waiting for her first child to arrive. Her mother-in-law, out of routine and custom, would wake her up at the still of early dawn to dissociate rice from the grains and prepare it on the wood-fired stove. With the weight of her unborn child and her responsibility as a young bride in her husband's household, she had unquestioningly followed these customs. One night, before the break of dawn, Asma woke up with soft tugs. Her mother-in-law's voice whispered, "Get up; it's time to prepare the rice for the family." The air was thick and silent, wrapped in the dampness of early morning. Asma dressed slowly, her limbs heavy with sleep, the weight of her belly pressed forward in her last trimester. She gathered herself and stepped into the yard, where her mother-in-law stood leaning against their old guava tree, wat...
