MORE THAN ONE WAY TO THE SQUARE

est/504/20061031/13711330.html
Oct 31 2006

We were standing at the top of a church tower. My father had brought
me to this spot in a small Italian town not far from our home in
Rome. I wondered why.

Look down, Elsa,¡Father said. I gathered all my courage and looked
down. I saw the square in the center of the village. And I saw the
crisscross1 of twisting, turning streets leading to the square.

See, my dear, Father said gently. There is more than one way to the
square. Life is like that. If you can’t get to the place where you
want to go by one road, try another.¡±

Now I understood why I was there. Earlier that day I had begged my
mother to do something about the awful lunches that were served at
school. But she refused because she could not believe the lunches
were as bad as I said.

When I turned to Father for help, he would not interfere.

Instead, he brought me to this high tower to give me a lesson. By
the time we reached home, I had a plan.

At school the next day, I secretly poured my luncheon soup into a
bottle and brought it home. Then I talked the cook into serving it
to Mother at dinner. The plan worked perfectly. She swallowed2 one
spoonful3 and sputtered4, The cook must have gone mad!¡Quickly I told
what I had done, and Mother stated firmly that she would take up the
matter of lunches at school the next day!

In the years that followed I often remembered the lesson Father
taught me. I knew where I wanted to go in life. I wanted to be a
fashion designer. And on the way to my first small success I found
the road blocked. What could I do? Accept the roadblock5 and fail£¿Or
use imagination and wits to find another road to my goal£¿

I had come to Paris, the center of the world of fashion, with my
sketches6. But none of the famous fashion designers seemed interested
in buying them. Then one day I met a friend who was wearing a very
beautiful sweater. It was plain in color, but it had a lovely and
unusual stitch7.

Did you knit8 that sweater?¡I asked her.

No,¡she answered. It was done by a woman here in Paris.¡±

What an interesting stitch!¡I continued.

My friend had an explanation. The woman her name is Mrs.

Vidian¡ªtold me she learned the stitch in Armenia, her native
country.¡±

Suddenly I pictured a daring design knitted into such a sweater.

Then an even more daring idea came to me. Why not open my own house
of fashion? Why not design, make and sell clothes from the house of
Schiaparelli9! I would do it, and I would begin with a sweater.

I drew a bold black and white butterfly pattern and took it to
Mrs. Vidian. She knitted it into a sweater. The result, I thought, was
wonderful. Then came the test. I wore the sweater to a luncheon which
people in the fashion business would attend. To my great pleasure,
the sweater was noticed. In fact, the representative of a large New
York store wanted 40 sweaters to be ready in two weeks. I accepted
the order and walked out on a cloud of happiness.

My cloud disappeared suddenly, however, when I stood in front of
Mrs. Vidian. But it took me almost a week to knit that one sweater,¡±
she said. Forty sweaters in two weeks? It is not possible!¡±

I was crushed to be so close to success and then to be blocked!

Sadly I walked away. All at once I stopped short. There must be
another way. This stitch did take special skill. But surely there
must be other Armenian women in Paris who knew how to do it.

I went back to Mrs. Vidian and explained my plan. She really didn’t
think it would work, but she agreed to help.

We were like detectives10, Mrs. Vidian and I. We put ourselves on the
trail11 of any Armenians who lived in Paris. One friend led us to
another. At last we tracked down 20 women, each of whom could knit
the special stitch. Two weeks later the sweaters were finished. And
the first shipment from the new house of Schiaparelli was on its way
to the United States!

–Boundary_(ID_KYa0q59fPXfjXZvbAmVp8g)–