I’d inherited from D an uncommon gift for persistence. So, a week later we got into the Renault—which now had, on both its doors, a Kramp products logo—and we set out for a neighboring town.
When we arrived and parked the car by the town square, D gave me a few instructions:
1.Smile.
2.Go for a walk if you get bored, but don’t venture beyond the same block.
3.Say thank you if the person in charge gives you a chocolate or anything.
And he promised that if we closed a sale or collected the amount owing for the previous month’s sale, in the late afternoon we would go to the coffeehouse.
We visited three stores that sold Kramp products alongside chocolates, toys, buttons, magazines, colognes, and dishcloths. On our first few trips, I could already see that objects designed for a vast array of uses established a sort of camaraderie in the town stores. I developed the habit of searching the display cabinets for objects with no apparent relationship to each other and telling myself that, if I discovered whatever the relationship was, I would have a lucky day (a wooden pencil was connected to a metal handle because the handle would be put on a door one day. A wooden door. Pencil–wood, wood–door. Luck).
That afternoon we sold three hundred saws and collected two amounts owing for sales closed the previous month.
I was also given a puzzle book and a can of pineapple, for which I said thank you.
In the late afternoon we went to the coffeehouse. So began our partnership.