“We have them. Of course we have them,” the woman replied. “It is our specialty.”

They took me to a dark shed in the back room with artificial indigo lighting. I looked at the terrariums for a few minutes. In each there was a pair of the same species. The snakes were very different from one another. They varied mostly in size and color. Some had smooth skin that looked slippery. Others, however, had swollen scales that, as much for the texture as for the symmetry of the patterns, brought to mind a woven basket. The kind of plants and the intensity of the lighting changed with each habitat. I paused to watch an anaconda slowly eating a blue bird. It didn’t discard anything, not even the bones.

“It is just an appetizer,” said the man. “It could devour you when hungry.”

I tried to stay calm and kept on walking. As I wandered the shed, I found a snake just like my father’s and, just like his, it was sleeping.

“What species is this?” I asked the woman.

She slipped a piece of paper out from under the terrarium.

“Its scientific name is Daboia russelii,” she replied. “It is found mostly in India, but in China it is known as a scissors snake.”

“I like it,” I lied. “It looks very tame.”

She shook her head.

“They are very poisonous. As for their temperament, there are all kinds. Some of them are serene, others not so much. Depends on each animal. This specimen is not usually this calm. It’s going through a bad time.”

I wondered if this was a selling tactic. A boy looking for that kind of a pet had to want something more than an inert viper.

“She’s in heat and last week her mate was taken away. They were very close. I urged the man who bought the male to take both of them. I even offered him a good deal, but he refused.”

I looked at the paper she’d read from and saw the price: 1,500 euros. I thought of how much my father had spent since he’d come back from China. Just building his pagoda must have been several thousand. I looked a second longer at the snake and thought of how sad it must be without its mate.

I left the place with a heavy feeling in my stomach. My father’s nostalgia for his country of origin had driven him to buy a piece of its fauna. Instead of going to class I went straight home. Dad had a meeting with a director friend of his from a foreign theater and I was sure that Mom would be happy to hear what I’d discovered. I was right to come home; as soon as I opened the door I found her drowning in tears and completely out of her wits. She didn’t ask me about school and got straight to the point: