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allowed to eat it; at the same time, he gave off the sadness of a person gazing upon a food they have long hungered for. He stuffed the pastry into his mouth with difficulty. Because of the shackles, he had to bend over to get a bite. His body curled like a snail’s shell. He kept his eyes fixed on the table as he chewed.
    “That’s right, eat up. Have some coffee, too, to wash it down. And let me know if there’s anything you would like to eat next time. I don’t have children of my own, so you can think of me as a mother. I’ve been coming here for thirty years. You are all family to me.”
    He paused mid-chew to crack a forced smile when Aunt Monica said she didn’t have any children. Though I was probably the only one who saw it, there was a hint of mockery to his smile. I guessed that his weapon of choice was a scornful look, just as I smoothed over conflicts by laughing at people. Of course, I might have been imagining everything, but from the moment I first saw him, I felt like he and I were from the same family, in the Linnaean sense. My instincts were rarely wrong, but it nevertheless made me feel a little strange to think I might have something in common with a death row convict. I was hungry for a pastry, having skipped breakfast after oversleeping, but watching him eat with his body hunched over and his hands clasped together like a squirrel made me lose my appetite. I felt a flash of pity. I wondered what had happened to bring him to this point. Aunt Monica urged the guard and me to take a pastry but only drank coffee herself.
    “So, how is it in here?” she asked. “Are you getting used to it?”
    He had been cramming the food into his mouth, but heimmediately stopped. A tense silence settled over the four of us; in the office where we sat, winter sunlight slanted in through the window. He slowly finished chewing.
    “I got your last letter,” he said. “I wasn’t going to come today, but I thought I should tell you in person. Officer Yi told me you’ve been coming here by subway and bus for the last thirty years, rain or shine. If he hadn’t told me that, I probably wouldn’t have come. So that’s why I’m here.”
    He raised his head. At first glance, his was a very tranquil face. But upon closer inspection, that tranquility looked as hard as a mask.
    “Okay,” said Aunt Monica.
    “Please don’t come to see me again. I won’t read your letters. I’m not worthy of them. Please, just let me die.”
    He clenched his teeth on the last words. From the way his chin quivered, he seemed to be biting down hard on his back teeth and grinding them together. It was alarming. The skin around his eyes had a bluish tinge. I felt a sudden fear that he would grab me by the throat and take me hostage, and I remembered seeing his name in the newspaper. He had killed someone and run away and then broken into a house and held a woman and child hostage. I could remember only the general details. I stared at the guard and my aunt. The sturdy shackles on his wrists were somewhat reassuring.
    “Yunsu… I’m over seventy years old now, so I can call you by your first name, right?” Aunt Monica was not ruffled in the slightest and spoke slowly and calmly. “Show me someone who hasn’t sinned. Even if you searched high and low, who would be worthy? I just want to spend time with you. We can meet once in a while, share a snack, talk about how your day was. That’s all I want, but—”
    “I don’t—” He interrupted her. He had the unusually calm voice of one who has thought for a long time aboutwhat he is going to say. “I have neither the hope nor the will to go on living. If you have the strength to spend on that sort of thing, then save it for someone else. I’m a murderer. It makes sense for me to die here. That’s all I came to tell you.”
    Yunsu rose as if to say he had no further business with her. The guard stood up, too; he didn’t look surprised. Yunsu’s impassioned appeal seemed to