Chapter 4: The Empty Room
Shilpa’s room had become a stage, and she its sole, determined performer. The three-month mark since Prema’s miraculous confirmation had passed, each day stretching longer than the last. The initial household celebration had curdled into a tense, watchful quiet. Prem’s nightly rotations had ceased entirely. Now, his footsteps never faltered outside her door; they went directly to his first wife’s chamber, where the sacred pregnancy progressed behind a wall of suffocating care.
So, Shilpa fought back the only way she knew how.
She began with the silks. The demure pastels and heavy brocades of a new bride were folded away. In their place came fabrics that whispered: chiffon so thin it was a mere suggestion of color, georgette that clung to every dip and curve, saris in deep emerald and burnt orange that she draped with deliberate negligence, leaving her midriff bare, the pallav slipping perpetually from one shoulder. She stopped wearing a blouse beneath some of them, just a tightly wrapped cloth that outlined the sharp points of her nipples when she moved.
Her perfumes changed. Gone was the light rose water. Now, she drenched her pulse points in heady, animalic jasmine attar and sandalwood oil, a scent that trailed behind her like a visible ribbon, seeping under closed doors.
She took her meals in the family sitting room now, a new, languid confidence in her posture. She would sit across from Prem, one leg curled under her, the sheer fabric of her sari stretching taut over her thigh. She’d lean forward to pass the salt, knowing the neckline of her choli—when she wore one—would gape.
“Jiju,” she’d say, her voice a lazy drawl, “you look tired. All that work, and then running to didi’s room to read to the baby, I suppose.” She’d let the word ‘baby’ hang, a tiny, poisoned dart. “A man needs… diversion.” She would take a delicate bite of a mango, letting the juice drip down her wrist, catching it with the very tip of her tongue.
Prem’s responses were glacial, controlled. A tightening of his jaw. A flicker in his eyes that snagged on the shimmer of her bare navel before wrenching away. “My duties are my diversion, Shilpa,” he’d reply, his voice flat. But his knuckles would be white around his water glass.
Prema watched these exchanges from the other end of the table, her growing belly a wall between her and her husband. She saw the way Prem’s eyes, though averted, seemed physically pained to look away. She saw Shilpa’s smug, feline smiles. A cold, sick jealousy began to crystallize in her chest, sharp and relentless.
The sounds started a week later.
Prema, whose sleep was already fractured by the child’s kicks and her own spiraling thoughts, would lie awake in the heavy midnight silence. And then, from the far wing, they would come.
At first, it was just music. The low, crackling wail of a Hindi film love song on the gramophone, played just loud enough to travel. "Yeh Raat Bheegi Bheegi..." The melancholic melody wrapped around the house like smoke.
Then, one night, the music stopped, and other sounds took its place.
A high, deliberate laugh. The distinct, rhythmic creak of a takht—a daybed—its wooden frame protesting under a persistent, driving weight. Then, a moan. Not a sound of pain, but of pure, unadulterated pleasure, long and low and unmistakably Shilpa’s. It was followed by Prem’s voice, a rough, hungry growl that was blurred by distance but clear in intent. Another creak, faster now, a frantic tempo. Then silence. Then Shilpa’s laugh again, breathless and triumphant.
Prema lay frozen, her hand on her belly, feeling her child stir as if disturbed by the violation of the night. Tears of hot humiliation tracked into her hairline. It was a performance. A cruel, calculated performance meant for her ears.
The next morning, Shilpa appeared for breakfast looking radiantly disheveled. Her hair was a cascading wave, only loosely pinned. There were faint, shadowy marks just above the collar of her kurta. She moved with a slight, exaggerated soreness, sighing as she lowered herself onto a cushion.
“No need to ask if you slept well,” Ragini remarked dryly, pouring tea. Her eyes held a glint of approval.
Shilpa smiled, a slow, satisfied stretch of her lips. “The nights are so long and lonely, Maa. One must find ways to… pass the time.” Her gaze slid to Prem, who was studiously reading the newspaper. “Isn’t that right, Jiju? You were up so late yourself. Working, I assume?”
Prem lowered the paper. His eyes met Shilpa’s over the top. A current passed between them, hot and naked. He didn’t smile. He didn’t need to. The possession in his look was answer enough. “I found a… productive use for my time, yes.”
Prema’s cup rattled in its saucer. No one looked at her.
That afternoon, plagued by a nausea that had nothing to do with pregnancy, Prema sought out Shilpa’s room on a pretext of borrowing a book. The door was ajar. She pushed it open and saw her sister at the vanity. Shilpa held a small, circular plastic case, flipping it open. Inside, nestled in a foil sheet, were tiny pink pills. She popped one out and swallowed it with a sip of water from a glass, catching Prema’s reflection in the mirror.
Their eyes locked. Shilpa didn’t startle. She didn’t hide the case. She simply closed it with a definitive click and placed it back in a drawer.
“What are those?” Prema asked, her voice hollow.
Shilpa turned, leaning back against the vanity. “Something to ensure I don’t have a… miracle,” she said, the word a sneer. “A doctor friend in town. Modern things, didi. They let a woman have fun without consequences.” She looked pointedly at Prema’s swelling stomach. “You have your duty. Let me have my pleasure.”
That night, the sounds were louder. More graphic. Prem’s voice, thick with command: “Turn over.” Shilpa’s gasping cries, punctuated by the sharp, staccato slap of skin on skin. Prema stuffed a corner of her pillow into her mouth, biting down to keep from screaming.
The breaking point came three days later. Prem had come to her room earlier, as was now his rigid habit. He placed a hand on her belly, asked about her health, his touch clinical. Then he turned away, preparing to leave for his other wife, his body already angled towards the door.
“Don’t go,” Prema whispered, the words tearing from a place of raw need.
He paused, his back to her. “You need rest.”
“I need my husband,” she said, her voice breaking. “Not a… a caretaker. What you do with her… I hear it. Every night. It’s torture.”
Prem turned slowly. His face was in shadow, but his stance was impatient. “What I do with her is my business, Prema. She is my wife.”
“She is my sister!” Prema cried, the fury finally erupting. “You flaunt it! You fuck her like a… like a whore in a brothel, and the whole house has to listen! For pleasure! While I carry your child like a… a vessel!”
He took a step forward, his voice dropping to a dangerous calm. “Watch your language.”
“Why? Because it’s the truth? You married her for duty, you said! For an heir! I am giving you your heir! What is your excuse now?”
His composure snapped. He closed the distance between them in two strides, his face inches from hers. “My excuse?” he hissed. “My right. She is my saali and my wife. My body, my choice where I spend my seed and my sweat. You think a man like me lives on duty alone? You have your miracle. She gives me mine. It is her duty to please me, and by God, she does.”
Prema recoiled as if struck. The vulgarity, the ownership in his words, was a physical blow. “I won’t allow it,” she choked out, though the words felt weak, meaningless.
A cold, humorless smile touched his lips. “You won’t allow it?” He laughed, a short, sharp sound. “Talk to your mother. She understands the way of the world.”
He left then, the door shutting softly behind him. That night, the sounds from Shilpa’s room were louder than ever.
The next morning, Prema found Ragini in the puja room, arranging marigolds before a stern-faced Lakshmi. The air was thick with incense and hypocrisy.
“Ma,” Prema said, her voice worn thin.
Ragini didn’t turn. “You look pale. You should eat.”
“I cannot eat. I cannot sleep. Prem… and Shilpa. It is obscene.”
Now Ragini turned, her eyes sharp. “Obscene? It is life. He is a virile man. You are in your condition. You think such a man will be content with prayers and pats on the head?” She turned back to the idol, her voice matter-of-fact. “If it is not Shilpa, it will be a dancing girl from the bazaar. Or a widowed cousin. Or a hired maid from the village. At least this way, it stays in the family. The wealth stays in the family. The shame, if there is any, stays behind our walls.” She picked up a spent flower, tossing it aside. “She pleases him. He is calm. He provides. He will be a good father to your child. This is the balance. Do not be a fool and upset it.”
Prema stood there, the truth of her mother’s words settling over her like a shroud. There was no outrage, no morality here. Only a brutal, pragmatic calculus. Her jealousy, her heartbreak, were irrelevant indulgences.
She walked back to her room, the weight in her belly feeling less like a child and more like an anchor. As she passed the open door to the garden, she saw them. Prem and Shilpa were by the fountain, the one where this had all begun. Prem was seated on the stone ledge. Shilpa stood before him, leaning down, whispering something in his ear that made him smile—a genuine, relaxed smile Prema hadn’t seen in months. His hand came up and cupped the back of her neck, pulling her in for a kiss that was not passionate, but possessive and leisurely. A kiss of routine, of easy ownership.
Shilpa’s eyes opened over his shoulder. She saw Prema watching. And she smiled, slow and wicked, before deepening the kiss, her fingers threading through his hair.
Prema turned away, the garden’s beauty now a grotesque parody. Her mother was right. This was her world now. A world of miracles with cold eyes, of duty that tasted like ash, and of pleasure that echoed down the hall, a reminder that she was, and always would be, just the first wife.
Prema did not return to her room. The acid truth of her mother’s words, the image of her husband’s casual kiss, propelled her feet forward on the cool stone floor. She moved with a purpose that bypassed thought, a direct current of wounded fury pulling her toward the east wing, toward the scent of jasmine and betrayal. The door to Shilpa’s room was closed. Prema didn’t knock. She turned the handle and pushed it open.
The room was as she remembered: a sunlit sanctuary turned den of iniquity. Shilpa stood at the vanity, brushing out her long, dark hair. She wore one of the thin chiffon slips she favored now, the outline of her body clear in the afternoon glare. Their eyes met in the mirror. Shilpa’s brush paused mid-stroke. A slow, infuriatingly serene smile spread across her reflection’s face. “Didi. You look unwell. Should you be walking around?”
“Close the door,” Prema said, her voice a taut wire.
Shilpa raised an eyebrow but complied, the click of the latch sounding final. She turned, leaning back against the vanity, the brush now dangling from her fingers like a weapon. “What is it? The baby kicking too much? Or just the noise last night? Prem was… particularly energetic.”
Prema flinched. The casual vulgarity, the proprietary use of his name, was a calculated blow. “You forget yourself. You forget everything.”
“I forget nothing.” Shilpa’s smile vanished. “I remember a garden. A wet sari. A man who couldn’t look away. I remember a doctor’s report you never questioned. I remember my duty, as you keep calling it.” She took a step forward. “He wanted a child. You couldn’t give him one. Now you can. Be happy.”
“This isn’t about a child!” Prema’s control snapped, her voice rising sharp in the perfumed air. “This is about you parading yourself, you poisoning this house! He flaunts you like a… a trophy. I have to listen to it!”
Shilpa laughed, a light, tinkling sound that grated. “Listen? Then stop listening. Plug your ears. Focus on your miracle.” She said the word with such venom it hung between them, poisonous. “He comes to me because he wants to. He craves it. The sounds you hear are just honesty, didi. Your marriage was a transaction. Ours is…”
“Ours is what?” Prema spat.
“Real.” Shilpa’s gaze was unblinking. “It is skin and sweat and need. He touches me because the thought of not touching me makes him ache. Can you say the same?” She let the question hang, a barbed hook in Prema’s heart. “He married you for your family’s connections. He married me for me.”
The air grew thick, charged with years of unspoken rivalry and fresh, searing hurt. Prema’s hands trembled. She wanted to slap the satisfaction from her sister’s face. “You are a glorified whore. He will tire of you. When I give him his son, you will be nothing.”
Shilpa’s composure didn’t crack; it hardened. “A whore is paid. I am worshipped. And as for your son,” she said, stepping so close Prema could smell the rose wine on her breath, “he will call me ‘Chhoti Maa.’ I will help raise him. I will be in every photograph, at every celebration, in his father’s bed every night.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “You will have the title. I will have the man. We will see who is ‘nothing’ in the end.”
The blatancy of the vision, the detailed theft of her future, winded Prema. She stared at her sister, this beautiful, venomous stranger she had shared a childhood with. The playful girl was gone, stripped away to reveal this ruthless core.
“You hate me,” Prema breathed, not a question but a realization.
Shilpa’s eyes softened for a fleeting second, something ancient and complicated flashing within them. “I wanted what was yours,” she corrected, her tone shifting, becoming almost contemplative. “And now, it is mine. Not just his attention. His laughter. The way he talks to me after, lazy and quiet. The way his hands don’t feel like they’re performing a duty.” She picked up the small plastic case from the vanity, rattling the pills inside. “He doesn’t need another heir. He just needs me. And I will give him everything but that.”
Prema’s fury collapsed in on itself, leaving a crushing vacuum of defeat. Her arguments were petty sticks against the monolith of this reality. Her mother was right. The world was right. She was the first wife, the respected vessel, the placid figurehead of a dynasty. Shilpa was its beating, hidden heart.
“He will never love you,” Prema said, her last, feeble arrow.
Shilpa’s smile returned, brighter and more terrible than before. She opened the door, a clear dismissal. “He doesn’t need to love me, didi,” she said softly. “He just needs to want me. And he does. Every single night.”
The door closed gently in Prema’s face. She stood in the silent corridor, the echo of Shilpa’s victory and the ghost of her own crumbling dignity the only things left. From behind the door, she heard the familiar sound of the gramophone needle settling onto a record. The first few notes of that same, wrenching love song began to play. It wasn’t for Prem. It was for her. A victory ballad. Prema placed a hand on her swollen belly, feeling the child twist inside, a prisoner already in this beautiful, gilded cage. She walked away, the music following her, each note a nail in the coffin of the life she thought she would have.
The monsoons arrived, unleashing their fury upon the city, and Prema’s time came amidst a night of lashing rain and howling wind. Her labor was long and arduous, a private tempest to match the public one, a trial by pain that felt like punishment. Yet, after hours that stretched into an eternity of sweat and muffled cries, the dawn broke with a feeble, watery light and the thin, indignant wail of a newborn son.
The household, so long gripped by a tense quiet, erupted into a festival of relief. Garlands of marigold and rupee notes appeared on the front door. Sweet boxes were ordered for distribution. Prem’s face, so often a mask of impassive control, broke into a genuine, triumphant smile as he held his heir. He was generous in his celebrations, gifting gold to the staff and a new car to Ragini, whose pride shone brighter than any metal. Prema, propped on pillows in a room now smelling of talc and milk, was treated with a distant, respectful kindness, like a monument that had finally served its purpose.
Shilpa observed the celebrations with a carefully curated smile. She kissed Prema’s cheek, cooed at the baby they now called Rahul, and played the devoted aunt. Yet, watching Prem dote on the child—his legitimate successor, his ultimate victory—a cold needle of irrelevance pricked her heart. She had given him pleasure, but Prema had given him permanence. The balance, so carefully manipulated, had shifted. She needed to reclaim his attention, to offer a celebration that was solely hers to give.
“Jiju deserves a real reward,” she told Ragini a week later, as they sorted through celebration silks. “Not just more family functions. Something… exhilarating.”
Ragini glanced up, her eyes knowing. “What did you have in mind?”
“A night,” Shilpa said, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. “Just for him. I have a friend, Roma. She performs at the Moghul Room. She owes me a favor.”
The name ‘Roma’ carried a certain weight, a whiff of scandalous glamour from the city’s most exclusive cabaret stage. Ragini’s lips pursed, not in disapproval, but in calculation. “Can she be discreet?”
“Utterly,” Shilpa affirmed. It was not entirely a lie.
She booked the Panorama Suite at the newly opened, palatial Prince’s Hotel, a landmark of modern Bombay with windows spanning from floor to ceiling. The room was a temple to luxury: a vast bed on a raised platform, a sitting area of deep velvet divans, a bar stocked with foreign liquors that gleamed under the light of a crystal chandelier. She filled the space with tuberose and gardenia, their scent oppressive and sensual.
Prem entered that evening with the air of a conqueror entering a tribute state. He wore a crisp, white silk kurta, his beard trimmed close. “What is all this, Shilpa?” he asked, though his eyes were already taking in the extravagance, a spark of appetite igniting within them.
“A gift,” she said, coming forward to take his hand. “For giving us all a son, Jiju.” She emphasized the familial title, a reminder of her unique, dual position.
He allowed the touch, his thumb stroking her wrist. “You didn’t need to go to such expense.”
“For you?” she smiled, guiding him to the largest divan. “Anything.”
A soft knock announced Roma’s arrival. She swept in, a vision in stark contrast to the draped silks of home. Her dress was a Western-style sheath of silver sequins that caught every light, hugging a figure as confident as it was curvaceous. Her hair was a bold auburn wave, her lips painted a shocking crimson. She carried an air not of demure grace, but of unleashed energy held in check by sheer will.
“Premji,” Roma said, her voice a husky melody. “The famous Jiju. Shilpa has told me so much.” Her eyes appraised him with a professional, appreciative candor that was itself a form of undressing.
Prem stood, captivated. This was a different creature entirely from the women of his household. “The pleasure is mine.”
Roma laughed, a rich, throaty sound. “We shall see.” She nodded to the hired musician sitting discreetly in the corner, and the first notes of a slow, percussive thumri filled the room.
What followed was not a dance, but an argument conducted with the body. Roma moved with a contained fury, her hips tracing impossible circles, her shoulders shivering with suggestion. The sequins threw dizzying patterns across the walls. She approached Prem where he sat, her shadow falling over him, but never touching. Her eyes held his, a challenge and a promise. She leaned close, the scent of her French perfume cutting through the flowers. “Does this please you, Jiju?” she murmured, the honorific twisting into something intimate and profane on her lips.
Prem did not answer. He didn’t need to. His entire being was fixed upon her, a hunter watching a sublime and dangerous prey. He lit a cigarette, the smoke curling lazily from his lips as he absorbed every undulation.
Shilpa watched from a chaise lounge, her initial satisfaction curdling into a cold stone of unease. This was meant to be her gift, her orchestrated triumph. But Roma, a professional to her core, was playing her role too well. Prem’s gaze held no acknowledgment of Shilpa’s presence. He was falling into a trance spun of silver sequins and raw rhythm.
The music shifted, building in tempo and intensity. Roma’s movements grew more overt, more explicit. She danced closer, her fingers grazing the fabric of his kurta over his chest, then retreating. Prem’s hand, resting on his knee, clenched. His cigarette burned unnoticed in the ashtray. The casual, proprietorial air he wore at home was gone, replaced by a ravenous focus Shilpa realized she had never fully commanded.
As the final drumbeat shuddered into silence, Roma ended mere inches from him, chest heaving, a sheen of sweat on her collarbone. The room felt airless, charged. Prem stood up in one fluid, predatory motion. He did not look at Shilpa. He placed a hand on Roma’s bare arm, his touch firm, final.
“Leave us,” he said, his voice rough, not to Roma, but to the musician, and by extension, to the silent Shilpa.
The musician scurried out. Shilpa stood, a protest dying in her throat. Prem’s attention was already wholly elsewhere. He pulled Roma to him, his mouth finding hers in a kiss that was less an expression of passion than an act of consumption. Roma melted into it with a practiced ease, her arms looping around his neck.
Shilpa stood frozen, the architect of a spectacle that had no place for her. The gifts, the flowers, the suite—they were just the set dressing for a different drama entirely. “Jiju…” she whispered, the word a feeble scrap of sound.
Prem broke the kiss, his eyes still locked on Roma’s. “Wait in the other room,” he commanded, without glancing Shilpa’s way.
Humiliation, hot and absolute, washed over her. She was being dismissed in her own arrangement. She stumbled toward the connected dressing room, the sounds beginning behind her before she even closed the door: the rustle of fabric, a low groan from Prem, the soft thud of a silver sequined dress hitting the carpet.
She sat in the dark dressing room on a hard vanity stool, the violent ecstasy of the cabaret replaced by another, more visceral performance. The sounds were unmistakable: the rhythmic groan of the bed, Roma’s sharp, encouraging cries, Prem’s guttural voice, fervent and filthier than Shilpa had ever heard it. He was not making love. He was fucking, with a single-minded, athletic intensity. The headboard beat a relentless tattoo against the wall.
A match flared, then the acrid scent of cigarette smoke drifted under the door. He was smoking during. The casual vulgarity of it, the sheer physical exhaustion implied, was a slap. He was expending himself completely, in a way he never had with her. The noises subsided, then began again with renewed force after a few minutes. Roma’s cries reached a frenzied pitch, followed by a profound, panting silence.
Shilpa waited in the dark, her own body clenched with a bitter tension. An hour passed. She heard the bathroom shower run. Muffled laughter. The clink of glasses at the bar. Then, the sounds started once more, this time slower, more prolonged, punctuated by Roma’s deep, satisfied sighs.
Dawn was staining the sky a sickly grey when the connecting door finally opened. Prem stood there, a towel wrapped around his waist, his chest hair damp, another cigarette dangling from his lips. He looked spent, sated, and utterly uninterested.
“Have the car brought around,” he said, his voice hoarse. “We’re leaving.”
“Where is she?” Shilpa asked, her own voice hollow.
“Asleep.” He turned away, disappearing back into the suite’s main room, leaving her alone with the scent of spent perfume, sweat, and stale smoke—the artefacts of a gift that had thoroughly, devastatingly, backfired.