Our bones

My name is Heleno. I'm a playwright, the protagonist of this long prose, Marcelino Freire's first novel, and I have a dead body of a prostitute to deliver to his father and mother, but I don't know who they are or where they are. All because nothing escapes the theater. Everything comes to the stage and stays there forever. I came to São Paulo because of Carlos, my first love, and to write plays, enchant audiences, "reveal this world and invent others." To cure illnesses, suffer, love, be happy, be normal, be someone else, always someone else, also narrating the melancholy of childhood, the mortal remains of everything that was said in my house and the fossils I found in my backyard. Ah, if it weren't for the audience, the directors, the journalists, the actors, the casting directors, the producers, the other Northeasterners involved in the technique, I wouldn't be able to put on a morgue face—that strong face, that rich face, that vengeful face, and that empty face when I'm playing just for myself. And then comes my love for the boy, Lourenço taking me to be "buried in my father's heart," the affection for Picasso, the hustler's shy sincerity, Estrela's breasts, the doorman, the murder, the banker, the other hustlers, the domino factory, my nine brothers, the police chief, the forensic examiner, the taxi driver in the back and forth of this narrative Freire invented. The São Paulo rascality. The nightlife. The bakeries... Theater for me was the soul's nonsense, it was the afternoon games of childhood, the cross of interpretation, it was the memory of my mother (all the characters I invented are her). In this life, I loved the applause, the travels, the complimentary reviews, the curious sex with successful artists, the street flirting, I loved the hot sex behind the arcades. I loved it all and will continue to love it. Heleno de Gusmão, in a statement dictated to Paulo Lins