Chapter 4

Once again I was seeing the injustice being done, and I couldn't say anything. There was no one in that room to help me, and I was between two people who could sign my resignation, and once again, I couldn't step on the wrong foot in the face of a pandemic and such a big crisis. As long as I couldn't have another safe way to make money, I couldn't let people know my worst side. I couldn't do more than lower my head and put up with it. I was a hostage to my own financial needs, and I wanted to scream with hatred every second that those two damned human beings tried to persuade me.

"And you also know that you only entered this company because of our racial quota," Arnaldo said so calmly that he didn't even seem to be offending me. "I don't want to offend, but with your color... It must be difficult to get any job."

But he was offending me between the lines, avoiding with excellence that I perceived racism in his hateful words. He could have called me dirty, and he wouldn't have offended me so much. Because I always felt that I was treated differently by the upper echelon of the company. And for a long time I thought it was because I was the new girl. But I've been there for two years. Many entered after me, and none of them went through half of what I went through. No one received half of the looks of disgust and disdain I received. I was saying that the color of my skin guaranteed my job, and not my effort to get up early and get home late, to do my best and be my best in any circumstance, to receive a salary that barely paid my bills and did not give me any luxury. This made me hate, but I was forced to repress, swallow, and be silent as Laura extended to me a sheet where it was said that three hundred reais were missed in my cashier, because legally they could not deduct my salary for taking a fake note, but to say that I was dumb enough to lose three hundred reais was easier.

"You are not obliged to sign that the mistake was yours, but this may have consequences in the future," she said, handing me a pen. "Think about how difficult it must be for families who do not find a job in this pandemic. You don't want to be part of the statistics, Tasha? He doesn't want to be on the list of the unemployed for a consequence as silly as being mistaken."

This would be a consequence of my resignation. It wasn't the first time they had found reasons to send someone away or make him ask for their bills. And even if they called me there to make that ridiculous speech that they were giving me a choice, I knew I wouldn't leave there without three hundred reais deducted from the salary or the signed dismissal. I had no choice, I found myself signing the paper, and in the same way that I entered quietly, I left mute.

I went back to my box and was quiet, as much as Jordana insisted on knowing why I was pale and cold, I didn't say. She knew more than anyone how much to be called in the manager's room did not mean a good thing, especially when a rumor that a large amount of money missing would be thrown on someone's back. They had tried to do this to her a few months ago, but she was really to blame, and yet she refused to pay. She was suspended for three days, and there were many rumors that she was next on the dismissal list. Jordana didn't care about anything. I had come from a place very far away and couldn't wait to come back. She had a well-structured family that supported her in any decision. Unlike me, who had no one and was not very satisfied with the idea of depending only on the internship in the office.

I spent maybe five minutes in shock, interpreting the racism and lack of humanity of those two, and deep down, I wished for an insane courage that would make me throw everything in the air. I knew there was a lot of hate in me, that it was like a grenade, and one day it would explode..., But it wasn't enough yet. There, I was still a new woman trying to live life without many pretensions, wanting to forget the past and its limitations. I still had dreams and ran after them in the most honest way possible.

I had not yet been corrupted by all the evil that was in my heart, no matter how much she was always there, poking me to act quickly. And even with my head heavy by the annoyance of that day, and the humiliations that never seemed to come to an end, I managed to recover some of my dignity and complained to my colleagues again, avoiding as much as possible talking about what happened in the management room. The worst of what I could become was yet to come, and I didn't know that when I was distracted by that emotional blackmail, and I found myself thinking about the last client I attended, thinking that no matter how bad and hard my life was, there were still small pleasures that motivated me to continue.

"Ahhh, you've arrived!" I stopped at the time of unlocking the door of my apartment and turned to the end of the corridor, where a slender and pink-haired figure in a Black Power style was standing, smiling at me. My head was so full of problems and worries, that for a moment I didn't recognize the person who called me, and this left her with a slightly annoyed expression on her delicate face and covered in shiny makeup.