"Living without God" in Cuba
August 31, 2010
Yusimi Rodriguez
http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=28460 (http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=28460)
HAVANA TIMES, August 31 – I've known Michel (Nonardo) Perea Enriquez since he was 19 and I was 16. During those early years, our friendship deepened first in casual encounters at film festivals and later through my surprise visits to his house. I was always more and more surprised, because one year this man was a drag queen, the next year a ->-bleeped-<-, the following one a writer (without having finished school), and now he's even become a visual artist, an actor and I don't know how many other things.
I still remember the first time I saw him – so thin, so fragile, serious and leaning back against a column. The director of an artistic project that I was involved in, but which never amounted to anything, had invited him to the rehearsal to join the group as a quick-change artist. Michel had arrived very early, when the hall where we were to rehearse was still empty. I was the first one to get there and hardly a moment after I saw him, though he was wearing men's clothes, I knew he was a homosexual.