The story’s protagonist was a man who went on a business trip. After a long first day at work, he returned to the hotel suite, exhausted, and threw himself on the bed. He ordered room service and stared at the television, waiting for food to arrive. His ears caught a melody playing. The sound was from an instrument, the piano, he inferred. Intrigued, he got up and tried to find where the sound was coming from. His room was on the 23rd floor, so the sound couldn’t be coming from outside. He walked out of his room into the hallway towards the room right across his. The sound kept getting louder. He reached the door and slowly placed his ear to it, trying not to disturb the guests inside. The music was indeed coming from the room. “It’s not a recording that is playing,” he thought. He contemplated whether he should knock on the door and introduce himself, but he didn’t know what he would say. Instead, he decided to peep through the keyhole. He saw a woman in a white dress seated on a chair, facing the opposite wall, her face looking down and her hands moving gracefully over the keys. He stayed in that position for a few minutes, listening intently to the music. He then heard the sound of the lift stopping at his floor. It was the room service. He returned to his room to avoid being caught peeping into someone’s room. He called it a day after having dinner and went to sleep. The next day, back from work, he heard the music again. It was a different song being played today. He noticed The woman still wearing the same white dress as he peeked again. For the next few days, watching the woman play the piano becomes the highlight of his day. He had concluded more things about her by now, that she was here alone as there was never another person in view and that she didn’t order room service at night. But since he returned from work late, he assumed the woman had dinner early. A week had passed, and his trip was ending in two days. He wanted to get to know this woman. Pacing back and forth in his room, he tried to think of what he would say to her after knocking on the door. Should he tell her he’s been listening to her playing the piano for a week? He couldn’t tell her he’s been peeping in the room, too. No, she would find it creepy. Gathering confidence, he walked towards her door and knocked lightly. He waited for a minute, but nobody opened the door. It hit him then that there was no music playing that day. A pang of panic struck him. Is the woman gone? Had he missed his chance to talk to her? In a hurry, he bent down to look through the keyhole again. He couldn’t see the piano, chair, or even the wall. The view was all red. It could be one of those do-not-disturb plaque cards they have at the hotels placed on the keyhole from inside. He retreated to his room and was sad and disappointed in himself for not talking to her earlier. “Maybe she hasn’t left the hotel and is just out for dinner today,” he tried to convince himself. The following morning, he rushed to her room and looked in the hole. Still red. That means she hadn’t returned, or worse, she had left the hotel. Disappointed, he went to work with a final hope of finding her in her room in the evening. He looked in the keyhole one last time after coming back from work. Just red. He wondered if she was still inside and had placed a red cloth over the door handle. He knocked, waited, and waited, with every passing minute cursing himself for not talking to her earlier. The doubt was becoming a certainty now. She had left the hotel. It was a disheartening end to his trip, as he was leaving tomorrow. He was at the reception the following day to check out. Ignoring what the receptionist would think of him, he asked if the lady in the room across from him had checked out.
“What room, sir?” asked the receptionist.
“Room 2303”, he replied.
“That room has been empty for two months,” said the receptionist.
“What?” he said aloud, “A lady lives in that room, and she plays the piano in the evening. I have seen her with my eyes,” he continued.
“I think you are mistaken. We had closed the booking for that room because of an incident,” said the receptionist.
The man couldn’t make sense of what he was hearing. He had heard the woman play. He had seen her every day for the whole week. He wanted to describe what he had seen to the receptionist, that she wore a white dress and probably stayed alone, but kept that information to himself as it would raise eyebrows. Instead, he asked, “What incident?”
The receptionist paused for a long time, drew a deep breath, and said, “A strange lady lived in that room two months ago. She had booked the room for a week but never went out. She used to order room service for the whole day in the morning. The servers always saw her wearing a white dress. She used to play the piano sometimes. Tragically, the lady hanged herself in the room. We never understood why. The room has been closed from booking since then”. He continued, “You know what the strangest thing about her was? Her pupils were red”.