The first time I went to the U.S. my father gave me a folder with photos of his sculptures and said, with a smile: "Take this. Check if you can sell some. When you get to New York, pick up the Gallery Guide in the streets." I took the folder with the same smile, and kept in my memory the guide hint. Installed in New York, familiar with the checkered Manhattan map, I looked for the Gallery Guide. Most of the galleries were in the south of the island, and I marked in red those that could, from the description, be interested in my father's sculptures.

I was 24, wrote well and was in graduate school. But I still didn't know how to dress. I put the leather boots from my last trip abroad, the jeans, a plumpy parka that my brother bought me and a hat - so charming on long hair models - that competed with my glasses for space on my face. The folder I protected from the snow with a plastic bag.

I walked into the galleries somewhat breathless, getting rid of the hat and the snow on my shoulders. They asked me: "How may I help you?" which sounded very good. Then I said my text, sure of myself: "I am the daughter of a Brazilian architect and sculptor, who would like to know if you have interest in his work. I have a portfolio with me."

Some of them dispatched me right there, precise. We don't have space for new artists. We do not work with out-of-town artists. Outoftown. It was not then that I captured the objectivity with witch Americans give name to things. I simply heard the negative and left, without thinking.

But many invited me to come in and take off my coat, which I did avoiding to spill melted snow on the portfolio. Some spread the photos on large desks, commenting on them one by one, talking about the colors, asking about sizes, and pointing in one work the strengh, in another the dialogue with architecture. In these conversations I learned the correct pronounciation of daughter, and that instead of aluminium or sculpturer we could simply say aluminum and sculptor. I also learned to like my father's sculptures. Sometimes they asked technical questions: how are the pieces painted? I answered putting together pieces of daily dialogues with my father.

"Daughter, I was late because I had to pick up the piece at the paintor" became "my father uses automobile industrial techniques in his work." Many, at the end, said: "Listen, this market is very competitive. The work has undeniable quality. I like it. But he has to be here, talk to people, go to exhibitions."

Americans are less sordid than Brazilians, reason why we think they are dumb. They noticed my efforts, and congratulated me: "How nice of you to come here for your father." They had talked to me in spite of my being sheer waste of time. I realize now that there was something insolit, almost literary, in that lonely Sancho Pança knocking door-to-door around Soho, gallery after gallery. I didn't fit in the category money, or work, but in fiction and entertainment.

Many years later, my father read a story of mine and told me he hadn't realized before how much I loved him. Writing this story I myself realized the amount of love involved in carrying a portfolio around the snowy streets of Soho. I think I am, more than I thought in the beginning, very much like him, a salesman, knocking door-to-door with colors to show.