The Tenant in Room 7

The purchase was finalized in late August, a sweltering afternoon when the city itself seemed to hold its breath. My parents, thrilled with the deal, signed the papers without a second thought. I, meanwhile, was buried in textbooks, my mind consumed by trigonometric identities and the periodic table. The new apartment was a world away from the old one, a place I’d never seen, in a neighborhood that hummed with the chaos of a thousand lives. It was above a pharmacy, a pathology lab, and a maternity hospital. The doctor who owned the hospital owned the other apartment on our floor. I remember thinking it was strange, living above a place where life began, but my mother said it was auspicious.

We moved on a Saturday, the traffic below a symphony of horns and the occasional screech of brakes. The building was an aging structure, its facade stained by years of monsoon rains. Our apartment was on the second floor, directly above the maternity ward. The hallway smelled of antiseptic and old wood, and the walls were a faded cream, peeling in places. Our new home was modest: two bedrooms, a living area, and a small kitchen that overlooked a narrow, airless courtyard. The previous tenants had left behind a few relics: a dented brass bell, a stack of yellowed newspapers, and a child’s drawing taped to the fridge, a crude crayon sun with a smiley face.

The first night, I couldn’t sleep. It wasn’t the noise or the unfamiliarity; it was a feeling of being watched. I chalked it up to nerves, the stress of moving during exam season. But the feeling persisted. In the afternoons, when the hospital below was quiet, I would hear sounds from the empty apartment next door—a soft dragging, like furniture being moved, followed by a faint, rhythmic thumping. I asked my father about it, and he dismissed it as the building settling or the pipes. But the sounds were too deliberate, too human.

One evening, while my parents were out, I decided to investigate. I crept to the door that connected our apartment to the doctor’s—a door we assumed was locked, sealed, and unused. It was an old wooden door with a brass handle, dusty and cobwebbed. To my surprise, the handle turned. The door opened inward with a groan, revealing a narrow passage that led to the other apartment. I hesitated, but curiosity got the better of me.

The other apartment was furnished, but everything was draped in white sheets, like a forgotten showroom. Dust motes danced in the slivers of light filtering through the shutters. The air was thick with the smell of camphor and something else, something sweetly decayed. I moved through the rooms, my footsteps echoing, calling out, ‘Hello?’ There was no response. In the bedroom, I found a photograph on the nightstand, its frame tarnished. It showed a woman in a white sari, her face partially obscured by a veil. On the wall, a calendar from 1987 hung, still on the month of June.

The sounds resumed, softer now, as if they were coming from beneath the floor. I knelt down and pressed my ear to the wooden planks. A woman’s voice, barely a whisper, was speaking in a language I didn’t understand. It was rhythmic, almost like a lullaby. I listened for what felt like hours, the voice lulling me into a trance. Then, suddenly, it stopped. A voice behind me said, ‘You shouldn’t be here.’

I spun around. A woman stood in the doorway, her face pale, her eyes hollow. She wore a white sari, just like in the photograph. I tried to speak, but my throat seized. She took a step forward, and I saw that her feet didn’t quite touch the ground. She smiled, a sad, knowing smile. ‘They think I’m still alive,’ she said. ‘But I’ve been dead for thirty years.’

The woman, who called herself Meera, told me her story. She had been the doctor’s wife. They had lived in the apartment we now occupied, and she had died in childbirth right below, in the very room that was now our bedroom. Her husband, the doctor, had been so consumed by grief that he had sealed the connecting door and moved to the other apartment, but he never reopened it. He had kept her things, hoping she would return. But she was trapped, stuck between worlds, watching over the hospital, unable to leave.

She told me that the sounds I heard were her attempts to reach out, to make someone listen. ‘There’s something else,’ she said. ‘The boy in Room 7. He’s been crying for hours. Can you help him?’ I had no idea what she meant, but I followed her as she glided through the walls into the maternity ward. In a small, dimly lit room, a bassinet sat in the corner. An infant was wailing, its tiny face red and scrunched. But there was no one else around. I picked up the baby, cradling it, and it quieted instantly. Meera watched, her expression gentle. ‘He’s been waiting for you,’ she said.

The baby grew warm in my arms, and I realized, with a jolt, that this was not a living child. Its flesh was cold, its eyes too dark, too knowing. ‘You have to take him,’ Meera whispered. ‘He’s mine.’ I stumbled backward, dropping the baby, which vanished in a puff of dust. Meera’s form flickered, her face contorting with anger. ‘You should have taken him,’ she hissed. ‘Now he’ll never rest, and neither will you.’

I ran back through the passage, slamming the door shut. I didn’t sleep that night, or for many nights after. The sounds grew louder, more frantic. The baby’s cries echoed through our apartment, and the woman’s lullaby followed me wherever I went. My parents thought I was suffering from exam stress, and they made me see a doctor. But I knew the truth.

Eventually, I couldn’t take it anymore. I confronted the doctor, the owner of the hospital, who lived next door. He was an old man now, frail and haunted. When I mentioned the woman in the white sari, he broke down. He confessed that his wife had died in childbirth, and the baby had died too, moments later. He had been so devastated that he had locked himself away, never speaking of it. But he knew about the ghost. ‘She’s been restless for years,’ he said. ‘She wants her child to be set free. We buried them together, but in his grief, he had the baby’s remains placed in a separate plot. He thought it would bring him peace, but it only separated them further.’

With the doctor’s help, we arranged to reunite the mother and child. We had a small ceremony, a priest, a few prayers. As the final mantra was recited, the air in our apartment shifted. The crying stopped. The lullaby ceased. The heavy, oppressive feeling lifted, and for the first time, I felt at peace.

Now, I live in that apartment with my parents, and everything is quiet. But sometimes, late at night, I think I hear a faint, contented sigh from the other side of the wall. I like to think they’re together now, finally at rest. But I can’t shake the feeling that the apartment is still watching, waiting for the next tenant who will heed its call. And I wonder, if they ever open that door, will they see a woman in white, holding a baby, smiling at them with eyes that have seen too much?