One day, she came hurrying into my office and said — ‘raje — if you have no more work, I suggest you leave right now… Al is drunk. And I dont want you in his office when he is… he’s not himself. ‘ And right on cue, my intercom pings with Al’s nasal voice: ‘raje, can I have you in here please? NOW.’
I look at her helplessly and she purses her lips… says she will wait for me to exit the room safely. I sit there looking at Al’s bloodshot eyes and slurred speech and his dictating ‘notes’ to me. Once I get out (45 minutes later), I report to her relieved and we leave the office soon, together.
In her ground-breaking book, Dr. Tererai Trent talks about Sahwira. A circle of sacred sisters who help us hold our ground in times of crisis. And this piece is about one of those wonderful and kind women who worked with me as an accounting assistant in the CPA firm in downtown San Diego (that I have written of, previously).
From South America, she had migrated to the US when she married a seemingly caring Mexican man, only to suffer his abusive control for a decade. Raising two children as a single mother, while eking out a living, had turned her into a wise and gentle woman of a kind I can only parallel with my own mother.
As such, in a firm where work ran on a ying-yang of intimidation and seductive staff that used womanly wile to escape the sole male partner’s ire — she became my quiet refuge whenever I was in the line of fire. As the ‘new find’ in a long list of attractive young staffers, I had the plum office with a view of downtown, and the latest cash-cow client to cater to. My reviews were great and the work, complex. It didn’t take too long for the sheen to wear off, for I couldn’t respond to the Partner’s constant sexual advances.
As the pressure grew to buckle to his demands, and the pressure grew at home to quit the job and go back to mothering, I often found reasons to gnaw my way to her desk near the printer. One look at me, and she would say nothing. She would talk nothing while permitting me to wipe my eyes dry and swallow the lump in my throat. Once when we were out on a walk, that I suddenly sprang on her, she saw me framed against the graffitied downtown walls — weeping with my shoulders shaking. She asked me to leave the job, because she, and my mother, would never want to see me like that, again.
That expression of concern, as though from my own mother, came to me like a piercing gust of wind onto a broken rib. I told her I just needed to last a year. And where would I find a job with such opportunity ? I was brown, and an immigrant. Al might be a patriarchal nightmare, but being Spanish — he probably didn’t think less of brown people. (I was proven wrong to have such a low estimate of American employers — as richly proved by another downtown firm and my current employers — however- that is all I knew, then).
Working for one of the biggest accounting firms in the world today, I feel a lot of empathy for that younger self — desperate for opportunity and confused about her worth. Amparo was right: there were better ways to gather experience without having to break the self.
3 months later; I hit my final straw and called Amparo the previous day telling her I wanted to quit. Would Al be in the office? She told me to wait, come precisely at 10.30 am, and to bring a resignation letter. My mom accompanied me. I hope my red blouse and carefully written letter (and pre-packed belongings) made Amparo proud. She hugged me for a long moment to say good bye, eyes filled with tears. I knew… she would now be alone in a toxic environment of racist and sexist bullying. I too, was her Sahwira.
I flew back to India within weeks… divorce and a long journey to recovery awaited me. Al. sold the firm and had the wisdom to keep her. She joined the merged firm and now reports to a better leader. I wonder if I will ever see her again; my mother in a firm where I was all, but alone.
