Format
Hardcover
Price
$24.99
Publication Date
February 20, 2024
ISBN
9781954641303
Page Count
288
Trim Size
9 X 6 inches
The Alterations Lady
An Afghan Refugee, An American, and the Stories that Define Us
by Cindy Miller with Lailoma Shahwali
A heart-tugging true story of identity, friendship, and perseverance from a survivor of the war in Afghanistan and an American who is forever changed by what she hears.
When Cindy Miller met Lailoma Shahwali, who was altering her daughter’s wedding dress, she expected their interactions would be brief. But in Lailoma she found not just a seamstress, but a survivor who opened up about her remarkable experience enduring Afghan war crimes, her husband’s brutal murder in front of Lailoma and her young son, and her escape to the US and journey to a new life and the American dream.
A breathtaking account of triumph in the face of all odds, The Alterations Lady documents Lailoma’s courageous pursuit of education as an Afghan girl, what she endured when extremists took over her beloved country and she was stripped of her rights, her relentless determination to protect her child, and much more. It is also an evocative reminder of the life-changing importance of remaining attuned to the continued struggles in Afghanistan today, and of how those in our day-to-day can inspire us to be better, fuller, and more empathetic humans if we simply take the time to listen.
About the Authors
Cindy Miller is a writer and editor who has worked in newspaper and magazine publishing for twenty-eight years. Cindy edited Arizona Woman magazine and the Arizona Woman Who’s Who in Business, was the founding editor of the award-winning AZ Society magazine and the Red Book Magazine, and has written and edited for the Arizona Republic. Her high-profile interviews have included Senator John McCain, Governor Janet Napolitano, Madeleine Albright, several top athletes, and the philanthropist Mavis Leno as she was spearheading the movement to stop gender apartheid in Afghanistan. Cindy lives in Scottsdale, AZ.
Lailoma Shahwali was born in Afghanistan and emigrated to the United States in 2000, supporting herself and her son through her work in clothing alterations. She lives in Scottsdale, AZ.
EXCERPT FROM THE BOOK:
Lailoma was preparing bolani for dinner. She rolled the dough into small, thin circles, and topped it with chives she had chopped and mixed with spices and salt. She folded one half of the dough over the other, forming a semicircle, and, as she was ready to drop it into the oil that was heating on the electric range, there was a knock at the door.
Before she or Mussa could reach the door, insurgents, claiming to be Taliban, kicked it open. Twenty or more—dressed in regular street clothes—stormed into their fifth floor apartment. They shouted obscenities, cursed, struck Mussa, throwing him to the floor, and tied his hands behind his back. Lailoma grabbed Maiwand who was crying and held him tightly as the insurgents proceeded to rifle through each room of the apartment. They threw anything electronic—the TV, video player, radio, cameras, telephone, everything that represented “the devil’s work”—out the living room window.
They flung open the kitchen cabinets and using the tip of an AK-47 swept the contents onto the tile floor. The crystal glassware shattered, along with the treasured baby-blue floral wedding China. With the bayonet attached to the end of the gun, they ripped apart the bedroom, slashing open the pillows and burgundy velvet mattresses. Lailoma watched as her wedding dowry and their reasonably ordered lives were decimated.
The violent search was not random. The Taliban detested the Soviets and were looking for documents that could connect Mussa to President Najibullah, whom they considered a Soviet puppet. Suspecting that he might be a target, Mussa had previously instructed Lailoma to get rid of anything that might serve as evidence of his position with Najibullah. Lailoma had burned most of the documents in their small charcoal grill. The rest she hid, mainly in her parents’ home.
But Lailoma knew something Mussa didn’t know. She had kept an envelope containing two documents that seemed particularly important: Mussa’s commendation from President Najibullah when he had been promoted to general and his ID card. One day Mussa might need these, she thought. She tucked the envelope away under the clothing in Maiwand’s dresser drawer.
She held her breath as the insurgents went through the drawers—afraid the Taliban would find the envelope and afraid Mussa would find out she hadn’t burned everything. Miraculously, they didn’t notice it. On this day, after scouring the rooms for more than an hour, they concluded there was no evidence in the home and they left.
“Leave Afghanistan,” Abdullah had often urged his son. “I will send your wife to you after you’ve left, but you must leave.”
Mussa refused. Most of his cousins had left. Some were in Russia, some in Germany, some in the Netherlands, but that wasn’t for Mussa. “I don’t want my family to be tortured because of me, but I’m not going anywhere,” he told Abdullah.
When the insurgents left, Mussa walked from room to room in a daze, not saying anything. They had escaped, but maybe Abdullah had been right. He lay down on the bed. While he rested, Lailoma took the envelope from under Maiwand’s clothes and put it under their big burgundy area rug. Oddly, the Taliban hadn’t looked there either. Then she turned to the kitchen and began to sweep up the mess: the bolani dough, the broken dishes, the broken treasures. That evening there was no dinner.
When Mussa called Abdullah to tell him what had happened, Abdullah again told him to leave. “You have to get out of here,” Abdullah insisted.
“They didn’t find anything,” Mussa told his father. “There’s nothing here to find. I think it’s over. They won’t come back.”
The next morning, Lailoma and Mussa began the process of putting their lives back together. By the time Lailoma got up to take a shower, Mussa had already gone out for a walk. Along the way, he picked up mantoo—ground beef dumplings—that Lailoma steamed for lunch. The food made all three of them feel better. Lailoma cleaned the dastarkhan, Maiwand played with his toys, and Mussa lay down on the sofa to read a book. Lailoma and Maiwand lay down too, and eventually all three napped.
They woke up around four. After an afternoon nap, they usually would have gone to Abdullah’s house for dinner. But they decided to stay home, relax, and have a cup of tea. Lailoma had just put water into the teapot, when she heard a knock on the door. The door was broken from the previous afternoon, but they had managed to close it securely. Mussa went to answer the knock.
The Taliban didn’t wait for someone to answer the knock. They swung the door open, slammed the butt of a gun into Mussa’s neck, and resumed the violent search they had begun the previous day. Room by room, they went through the apartment again. Lailoma had cleaned it up as well as she could, and now she would have to repeat the process. Clearly the Taliban suspected they had missed something. Again, miraculously, they didn’t lift the burgundy rug, where they would have found the hidden documents.
Are they also looking for Ahmadwali? Lailoma wondered, following them from room to room while holding tightly to Maiwan
“Stay in the kitchen,” they ordered her harshly in Pashto.
Then they seized Mussa under his arms and dragged him from the home. Though she was afraid they would see her, she watched as they hanged him by a rope from the tree outside the couple’s kitchen window. Maiwand, now five, clung to her. They stood together as she witnessed the unthinkable: the Taliban put a gun to Mussa’s head and pulled the trigger. The rope, it turned out, was just for show.
“Leave him hanging from the tree,” they screamed up at Lailoma.
Using a bullhorn, the insurgents gave the same instructions to any onlookers in the area. If anyone came to cut Mussa down, they said, that person would suffer the same consequence. Public executions had become common and served as examples for others.
Terrified beyond measure, Lailoma slumped to the floor and cried throughout the night as she sat with her arms around Maiwand, nursing him and rocking back and forth. When she dared look out into the starlit night, she could see Mussa’s shadowy figure hanging from the tree.