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:

“Your father has a lover. An Asian woman he met on his trip. I told you that animal was a sign of misfortune. I don’t know what to do, thank goodness you’re here.”

I decided not to tell her that I’d been to the pet shop. Instead I suggested that we go to her favorite pastry shop on the other side of the city. An absurd idea that she readily agreed to. She was in such a state of shock that I think she would have gone along with anything I suggested. Once in the café, in front of a chocolate Sachertorte that she looked at as if it were a stone, she told me what she knew and how she’d learned it.

That morning, as soon as my father left for his meeting, Mom went into the pagoda and looked through his online accounts. Dad had been basically handicapped with those kinds of things for many years and Mom had handled his e-mail. She found in his trash folder two compromising photographs with dates that matched his trip.

“Her name is Zhou Xun,” she told me. “She’s an actress and, naturally, very young.”