by Li Cunxin
My fumbling continued, my voice shaking. “Mary, you are such a special person in my heart and the most beautiful person in the world. I feel that you are a much better human being than I am. Sometimes I don’t feel that I deserve you. Would you still love me the same when I have a long silver beard at the end of my life?”
“Li.” Mary sounded impatient. “What are you trying to say?” I knew she was thinking, for god’s sake just get on with it! “Are you trying to tell me that you want to spend the rest of your life with me?”
“Yes! Do you think we can be happy together, for the rest of our lives?” I still couldn’t say what I wanted to say.
“Li,” she said matter-of-factly, “you are the dearest person in my life. I will love you until I die. Of course we can be happy together for the rest of our lives.”
Asking Mary to marry me was the hardest, the bravest and the luckiest thing I had ever done in my life. My heart soared into the air. Now I had found my soul mate. My niang was ecstatic. Even my dia was happy, though his reaction wasn’t quite as spontaneous as my niang’s.
Mary told her parents about our engagement immediately, and of course they were happy, but being Catholics they were somewhat uneasy about their daughter not being able to have a traditional wedding because of my previous divorce. So one of my friends, who was also Catholic, set up a meeting for me with a priest, Father Monaghan.
Father Monaghan was a chubby, friendly person. He wore a pair of spectacles and a priest’s robe. I hesitated in front of this rather ordinary-looking man—he didn’t look like a messenger of God to me. “Nice to meet you, Father Mon ...” I struggled with the pronunciation.
“Monaghan,” he said helpfully. “Tell me about your problems.”
I told him everything—my failed marriage with Elizabeth, my defection story, which he knew well enough already, my love for Mary, her parents’ sincere wish that their daughter could be married in the Catholic Church.
“Does Mary love you as much as you love her?” he asked.
“Yes,” I replied.
“Do you believe in any religion?” he asked.
“No, I was never allowed to believe in any religion. Except Mao’s communism,” I replied.
“Do you believe in God?” he asked seriously.
This was the first time anyone had asked me this, and I had never given it much thought. I remembered looking up into the sky as a child and imagining the gods above, whoever they might be. I remembered flying my kite back home in my village and imagining my secret communication channel up to the gods, saying my prayers and sending up my secret wishes. I thought of every turning point in my life, and I knew I’d felt a great force guiding me, but I could never put a finger on what that was.
“Yes, I do believe there is a god,” I finally replied.
Then Father Monaghan said, “I’m going to ask you the last and most serious question of all. I want you to take your time to consider this.”
I started to feel nervous.
“To be able to marry Mary you have to become a Catholic. Are you prepared to adopt the Catholic religion as your only religion for the rest of your life?”
I sat there like a statue. Communism had been my religion for over eighteen years. Ever since I’d turned my back on it, I hadn’t questioned myself about other religious beliefs. I had no idea what kind of differences there were between other religions. Perhaps Catholicism was like communism, I thought. But as long as I believed in God, the one God for all people in the whole world, then surely Mary and I would be able to share the same religion. So I agreed there and then to become a Catholic.
Both Mary and her parents were overwhelmed with this news. Mary’s mother couldn’t figure out how on earth Father Monaghan would get the Catholic Church to agree to have my first marriage annulled. But Father Monaghan assured us that because my communist background had denied me any religious freedom, our marriage within the Catholic Church would be perfectly possible.
I was supposed to have five religious education sessions with Father Monaghan, and I was given a Bible to read. I still had such difficulty understanding how Jesus could possibly have been born to a virgin. “How do we know that Jesus wasn’t Joseph’s child?” I asked Father Monaghan. But Father Monaghan was very patient and after just three lessons I was baptized, at the age of twenty-six. It was 1987, and our marriage date was set for October.
Two nights before our wedding, I learned all about the tradition of the bachelor’s party. I was reassured by my friends that this was one tradition that we simply had to have.
That same night I was invited to a lavish black-tie party in honor of the beautiful and glamorous Isabella Rossellini, daughter of Ingrid Bergman. But first my friends took me to an Irish pub. They gave me vodka. They all drank water, but I thought they were drinking vodka too. By the time we got to Isabella’s party, my head was spinning.
Then it was on to our final stop, a men’s club. We were ushered to a private VIP room. During the course of the evening, twenty-dollar, fifty-dollar, sometimes one-hundred-dollar bills were exchanged as the men were entertained by topless dancers. This was the Western version of the Chinese wedding’s “chaos night,” I thought. Mary’s brother Matthew, who was with me, was horrified. By one o’clock in the morning, I was exhausted and told my friends that I’d had enough of the wiggly topless dancers and I just needed to go home. But I was too drunk to drive.
“I’ll drive you home!” my friend John volunteered.
“No, I will. I’m not drunk,” said Matthew. But all the way home he forgot he wasn’t in Australia still, and he habitually drove on the wrong side of the road.
Mary’s mother was so worried about our bachelor party. She nearly called the police to see if there were any reports of dead Chinese and Australians in any car accidents that night.
By the time of our wedding Mary and I had bought a new house with a large front yard that we could use for our wedding reception. Since my parents had just left America—they’d arrived more than six months ago—none of my family members could be there, but we had invited over fifty of our friends. How I wished my parents could be present too.
We decided to have our wedding in the little Catholic chapel where I had been baptized. The wedding rehearsals were like getting ready for a major performance. But the wedding ceremony itself was no ordinary performance: it was the defining moment of our lives.
With Charles Foster standing by my side as my best man, I nervously waited for the sound of the music that would signal Mary’s entrance into the chapel. Then I saw her, the princess of my life being led down the aisle by her brother Matthew. I had feelings in my heart like never before. For a brief moment I thought I was in another time altogether. For a brief moment I could see only the image of a young and innocent eighteen-year-old Chinese girl, way back in 1946, being carried with her entourage toward her future husband’s village. But then suddenly that image vanished and I saw in its place Mary’s beautiful, loving face.
We went to Acapulco for our honeymoon and shared the most intimate time of our lives together. The more we understood each other, the closer we grew.
But our marriage didn’t change our commitment to our dance, and although we loved to dance with each other we respected Ben’s artistic decisions too. As the Houston Ballet’s reputation spread, more and more choreographers came and staged their works, and we continued to progress and develop as artists. Christopher Bruce came with his Ghost Dances, a beautiful work choreographed to South American music. I learned so much from him. His choreography was breathtaking. He even created a new work especially for Mary and me, called Guatama Buddha.
Another British choreographer, Ronald Hynd, the choreographer of The Sanguine Fan, which the London Festival Ballet performed in China back in 1979, came to Houston to do a full-length version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame. The whole company was abuzz with this new creation. There was a lot of speculation about who would be chosen for the title roles of the Hunchback and the
gypsy girl, Esmeralda. Ronnie Hynd walked around the studios for days watching classes and rehearsals before making his final decision. When the casting sheet went up, Mary was Esmeralda and I was the Hunchback.
The whole choreographic process for The Hunchback was fascinating, and Ronnie’s theatrical skills allowed me to perform a role that was totally different from my usual princely roles. There wasn’t much dancing and Mary and I didn’t dance together as partners, but it was a great acting experience for me, and in the end Mary stole the show.
Glen Tetley was another choreographer I loved working with, and he was arguably one of the most highly respected modern ballet choreographers in the world. His legendary pursuit of excellence and his moderate temperament made dancers work beyond their usual physical limitations. He came to stage one of his most technically challenging ballets, Le Sacre du Printemps or The Rite of Spring. Even Baryshnikov had found it a challenge, I was told.
Glen came into the studio in the middle of our class one day and sat by the mirror with his friend Scott. I watched as Glen’s eyes darted around while he whispered to Scott, who scribbled down some notes in a notepad. I was nervous. I wanted so much for him to like me and choose me to be in his work.
To my joy, I was his first cast for the lead in Le Sacre du Printemps. When I walked into the studio on the first day of rehearsals I was shaking with excitement. I couldn’t believe I was going to work with one of the world’s most creative choreographers. But from the start of that rehearsal I knew this was going to be one of the most challenging times of my career. Glen was certainly demanding. Nothing escaped his experienced eye. Every subtle detail had to be right. He expected total concentration and total dedication. Sometimes, when a dancer didn’t give 100 percent, he would stop him in the middle of his dance and simply say, “Okay, that was a warm-up. Now let’s do it again for real.” There were no protests, no screaming or yelling, only recognition of his high expectations.
I had several physically difficult solos in this ballet, and they required enormous stamina. Glen understood exactly what it would take. Many times, after hours of endless jumping and turning under Glen’s strict and watchful eye, I felt there was not another breath left in me. Every muscle in my body was wasted with fatigue, and my back injury still gave me problems. Often I just wanted to lie down on the floor and die. But then, just as I felt I was at the end of my physical capabilities, he’d say, “Let’s do it again for the road.”
Is he mad? I would scream inside. But I knew I had to start these solos again with whatever was left inside me. No one complained. We knew that without this kind of work our stamina would not improve.
Sometimes during the rehearsals, when Glen would ask me to do it for “the last time,” I would feel sick from extreme exhaustion, but somehow Glen kept pushing me beyond my physical boundaries. I discovered those rare moments when the power of the music took over. It was refreshing, almost spiritual. By the time of the performance, I felt full of energy, ready to explode on stage.
Then came Romeo and Juliet. Ben had planned to choreograph a new version for the Houston Ballet to be staged at the newly completed Wortham Center in Houston. It would be one of the most lavish and expensive productions in Houston Ballet history. Both scenery and costumes would be designed by David Walker, the famous ballet and opera designer from The Royal Ballet in England. Everything was going to be made in London and shipped to Houston. Ben had chosen Janie Parker and me as his first cast and Mary was paired with Kenneth McCombie as second cast.
I loved the story of Romeo and Juliet and the Prokofiev score, but the rehearsals were grueling. Ben often threw out certain sections of his choreography, even though we had been rehearsing for days, and then he’d start all over again. We’d try many, many different ways of doing a particular lift, of partnering, jumping or performing turns, over and over, until Ben would finally shout, “That’s it! I like that.” It was a tough schedule: there were detours, setbacks, endless challenges, but our enthusiasm was always sky-high.
But for a ballet that told a story like Romeo and Juliet, I had to gather all my experiences together so I could somehow make the Romeo role more real for myself and for the audience. Some aspects of Romeo’s character I found easy to portray, but others were difficult. I read Shakespeare’s play over and over and watched as many Romeo and Juliet movies as I could get my hands on. I wanted to create my own version of Romeo, to make it my role. I remembered my feelings toward Her Junfang in that dark room in the Beijing Dance Academy. I remembered my first love, Elizabeth, and my love for Mary. I remembered portrayals of love, from literature, film, anything that would help me in my creation of Romeo.
The opening night of Romeo and Juliet was one of the biggest events in the history of the Houston Ballet. The air was full of tension. I couldn’t make myself calm down. I heard the applause for the conductor. Just listen to the music, I told myself. Just listen to the sound of the music.
That night, from the very first note, I knew I had not only heard the heart and soul of the music but I had felt it as well. I leaped joyously and I lifted my Juliet high in the air. I ran wildly around the stage to celebrate our soaring love. And when Romeo mistakenly believed that Juliet was dead, all the sorrow and despair I had ever experienced in my life overwhelmed me. I thought of the years of separation from my parents, of fearing for my life in that small room in the Chinese consulate. I thought of life without Mary, I thought of the greatest sacrifice one could make, to take one’s own life for the sake of love. When Juliet finally plunged Romeo’s knife into her heart and closed her eyes forever, there was not a sound from anyone in the entire theater, only the soul-wrenching music playing to the end. Then suddenly the audience erupted into applause. I didn’t want it to end. I’d tasted the delicious feeling of the ultimate performance; the performance of my life. Another moment to treasure forever.
I was invited as guest artist to dance with a number of companies worldwide after Romeo and Juliet. La Scala in Milan, steeped in history, was one of the most thrilling and inspirational. But along the way I still kept striving for one distinction. I didn’t want to be just a technically good dancer: I wanted to be creative, emotionally powerful, artistically mature. I’d made many breakthroughs in my dancing already, and had a number of offers from other companies, but my loyalty was always with Ben and the Houston Ballet and I still often remembered the old Chinese fables, such as the bow shooter, and drew on them for inspiration. I kept telling myself that I had only tasted the mango skin, not the flesh. I kept reminding myself of the painful leg-limbering exercises that Teacher Gao had made us do all those years before. Constantly I reminded myself of where I had come from—my peasant roots, the starvation, the desperation of being trapped in the deep well, of my Chinese heritage—all this I used as my internal driving force. And as my standard of dancing improved, my ambition of becoming one of the best dancers in the world was never forgotten. I worked even harder. I kept Nureyev, Baryshnikov and Vasiliev always in my mind. I had overcome so many obstacles in my life. Nothing could stop me now.
But no matter how successful I would become as a dancer, there was always one last unfulfilled dream. So, in early 1988, with Mary holding my hand, I went back to the Chinese consulate in Houston.
It was still in the same building where I had been detained, nearly seven years earlier. This time I was there to ask the Chinese government’s permission to allow me back into China to visit my family. To go home. I wasn’t sure what kind of reaction I would receive.
The entrance to the consulate was now much grander. A big round emblem of the People’s Republic of China had been erected high above the gate. Once inside we were warmly greeted by the cultural consul, Mr. Tang, who led us to a meeting room and offered us some Chinese tea. He didn’t have any idea that this room was the very same room where Charles, Elizabeth and I had been detained back in April 1981.
I was nervous and uncomfortable sitting there. Images from that night seven years before flashed
through my mind. I felt claustrophobic. My heart began to race.
Mary sensed my apprehension and gently reached for my hand and held it tight. Almost exactly like what Elizabeth had done on that dreadful night.
Consul Tang was easygoing and friendly but, even so, I wasn’t sure what to make of him. Should I trust him? I’d walked into a trap here before. I didn’t want that kind of nightmare again. I guessed that he would have been well-informed of my past, but Consul Tang didn’t mention that. Instead he began to tell us how the Chinese now had more freedom and a much higher living standard under Deng Xiaoping. He emphasized that China today had an open-door policy toward the rest of the world. It had been nearly nine years since I’d left China. Things had changed.
“Cunxin,” he said, “I’ve read your file and I know quite a bit of your past. We want to forget what has happened, but there still could be considerable opposition within the Chinese government to your return to China. But I will try my best to help you because I believe that what you have achieved in the last nine years has only added glory to the image of the Chinese people. I hope Beijing will grant you permission, but I can’t guarantee that they will.”
I left the consulate feeling vaguely optimistic, but the waiting over the next few weeks was unbearable. A month passed. No word from the consulate. I called Consul Tang.
“Nothing yet. I’m sorry,” he responded.
With each passing day my hopes became dimmer.
Two months later I had just about given up hope altogether when, after a rehearsal one day, I found a message in my pigeonhole at the studios: “Please call Consul Tang at the Chinese consulate.”
With a trembling hand I dialed his number and prepared myself for bad news.