But the woman spoke then, in a raspy voice, and told me — simply, without asking for anything — that she had spent twenty years moving between train stations and parks and empty buildings.

That her first memory was of waking, two decades ago, amid the rubble of a construction site, with nothing before it.

No family.

No last name.

No home.

Nothing.

Alejandro had met her that afternoon over a bowl of soup.

“I’m going to help her recover her identity and find a decent place to live,” he said.