Mao's Last Dancer (Movie Tie-In)

by Li Cunxin

  “Cunxin,” I replied.

  “It’s so pretty,” she said.

  “It mean keep my innocent heart,” I said.

  “Cunxin, Cunxin, it’s so beautiful,” she murmured. “How old are you?”

  “Nineteen,” I replied.

  “I’m eighteen. How many brothers and sisters do you have?” she asked.

  “Sex brothers,” I replied.

  “Six, not sex.” She laughed.

  “Oh, I can’t hear they are different. What sex mean?”

  “Maybe I can explain it to you later.”

  I could sense she was uncomfortable. “English hard. In English, you say go, goes, gone. In Chinese we say will go, go and go yesterday, he go, she go, you go, I go and we all go.”

  She burst into laughter.

  “Really!” I said. “English, change verb all the time. Is hard for Chinese person.”

  “But you’re doing very well,” she said. “We’d better go or we’ll be late for the movie.”

  There were not that many people in the cinema, and I found it hard to concentrate with Elizabeth sitting next to me. I wanted to know her better, but I doubted Elizabeth would show me any special interest. So I was surprised when, after the movie, she agreed to have dinner with me.

  We went to a small, cheap Chinese restaurant. We asked each other many questions and although we had difficulty understanding each other we managed, and we enjoyed being with each other. I ordered some authentic Chinese food—pig’s intestines and sea slugs. That would impress her, I thought, but she seemed to have a rather small appetite. Still, I started to relax, and by the end of the evening I felt sad to part with her.

  Before we approached Ben’s apartment I told her to stop the car because I didn’t want the security guard to see us. If he told Ben that I was having a relationship with an American, Ben would be placed in a very difficult situation. He’d have to tell the Chinese consulate, and I would be sent straight back to China.

  Elizabeth stopped her car one block away from Ben’s complex. “When can we see each other again?”

  “Don’t know,” I replied. I reached out and we touched hands. I felt her breath. I felt hot blood rushing through each vein. I don’t know how long we kissed but the headlights of a passing car interrupted us. This was happening too fast. I needed time to think. So I quickly said good-bye and got out of her car.

  “You’ll call me, won’t you?” she asked.

  I nodded and walked back to Ben’s apartment.

  Elizabeth became my first lover. I felt liberated. I couldn’t believe I could make love to a beautiful woman and that she could be mine. I felt a great sense of responsibility for Elizabeth, and great pride too. But I knew our secret relationship was dangerous and the only person I could think of to share my secret with was Lori. She’d sometimes tried to persuade me to stay in America but I had always said no. She felt sorry for me, having to go back to China.

  A few weeks later, one Sunday, Lori invited me to her house for a barbecue. I met her husband, Dilworth, a Texas oil entrepreneur who chewed tobacco and drank bourbon. I told them how much I liked Elizabeth and the sorrow I felt about returning to China. I didn’t expect them to do anything about it, but they took this matter to heart right away. Dilworth called the University of Texas and asked if they could recommend a good immigration lawyer. They suggested a man called Charles Foster.

  The following day Lori and Dilworth took me to Charles Foster’s office in downtown Houston.

  Charles Foster said he had read about me in the newspaper. He said I could qualify for a green card on my own artistic merits. He also mentioned that the Chinese government recognized international marriage laws.

  I remember feeling unsure, not about my love for Elizabeth, but Charles seemed very young to be so successful and I didn’t really understand everything he’d said about the law anyway.

  Lori and Dilworth tried to explain more, but I left that first meeting still very confused. I loved Elizabeth. And I couldn’t go back to China and survive in a world with no freedom. Not anymore. But China was where my parents were, where my family and my friends lived. I could still contribute an enormous amount to Chinese ballet.

  It was then that I realized I was torn between two possible lives. I didn’t know what I was going to do.

  21

  ELIZABETH

  I had been in Houston for eleven months, but my secret relationship with Elizabeth was only a few weeks old. Still, I had to keep focused on my work.

  I’d been rehearsing the Le Corsaire pas de deux one day with Suzanne, experimenting with a new, one-handed lift, when just before the end of our rehearsal there was a jerk in my shoulder joint and a sharp pain shot through my right arm. I caught Suzanne with my left hand on the way down, but stars flashed before my eyes and for a few minutes I couldn’t feel anything but intense pain.

  Ben and Suzanne were immediately concerned. I went to the dancers’ lounge and put an ice pack on my shoulder joint. I knew I had dislocated it, and probably torn some tendons and muscles too, but I didn’t want to see a doctor. I didn’t want Ben to think it was serious. He might take me out of the ballet.

  My shoulder was swollen for days and I covered it up by wearing long-sleeved shirts. I couldn’t do lifts properly and had to make different excuses. Then I developed severe tendinitis in my left Achilles tendon and a shinsplint in my right leg. I knew I was overworking myself, and I knew that by continuing to practice I might make my injuries worse. But I also knew I needed to work harder if I was ever to reach the standard of Baryshnikov and Vasiliev. There was no way I was going to let injury slow me down now.

  Ben had also choreographed a circle of six consecutive double assemblé or double turns in the air, for my solo in Le Corsaire. I could barely do one well, let alone six. Every time my feet pushed off from the floor my body would twist in the air like a barbecued shrimp. “There is no point getting yourself injured,” Ben said. “If it doesn’t work, let’s change it.”

  “No, Ben! Please, give me few days,” I begged, despite the pain of the injuries. I was angry with myself for not being able to do what Ben had in mind but there was a weekend coming up and I knew I could use it to practice. I borrowed one of the dancer’s keys for our studio and locked myself in for two whole days, practicing each movement and analyzing them in absolute detail—the angle of my leap, the timing, weight distribution, speed—everything. At times the pain was excruciating, but I remembered Teacher Xiao’s mangoes. I yearned to taste each layer. I practiced over and over and over and fell many times, but then I thought of the bow shooter and how he’d persevered, and I practiced again and again and again.

  I made the breakthrough late on Sunday afternoon. The angle and the speed of my first leg was the key.

  I was elated. I truly believed, now, that nothing was impossible.

  Le Corsaire was a huge success. My double assemblé and the difficult lifts worked beautifully. The audience demanded an encore. I didn’t understand what an encore was then and I wasn’t prepared, and the stagehands had already started to change the scenery for the next ballet. But then, quite unexpectedly, Ben came on stage with a microphone in hand. He stood in front of the curtain and made an announcement: he now had the Chinese government’s permission for me to stay in Houston longer and had promoted me to a soloist position with the Houston Ballet.

  This must be a dream, I thought. Senior Consul Zhang Zongshu from the Chinese consulate was in the audience that evening. He was very proud: I had brought glory to the Chinese people, he said, and he would do anything in his power to make sure my stay was extended. His report to the Chinese government would be most positive. In the end the Chinese government gave me permission to stay for an extra five months, and the dancers’ union agreed to allow my promotion.

  From then on in Houston I was a sort of celebrity. It was very strange. I was stopped by people in restaurants, shops, streets and even parking lots. But despite this instant stardom I knew I would hav
e to work hard—I knew I couldn’t lose sight of my aim. My injuries gradually got better, but nothing else changed. Zhang and I continued to stay with Ben, and I continued to meet Elizabeth in secret. I became increasingly frustrated at not being able to see Elizabeth more, but I also felt guilty. I felt like I was betraying Ben and China, both at once. I wished I hadn’t allowed myself to fall in love with her. Living with both desire and guilt was becoming suffocating, but I had no choice. Anyone I told would be placed in a very dangerous situation with the Chinese government. I couldn’t bear to put my family and friends in such a position. My only option was to stay quiet.

  Soon it was April 1981 and I had less than a month to go before returning to China. The Houston Ballet’s first major tour to New York was coming up, and both Zhang and I would perform.

  I was the second cast for the lonely, arrogant prince in John Cranko’s The Lady and the Fool. I had never even heard of this ballet before but one week before the performance in New York, out of the blue, Ben asked me to do a full rehearsal with the first-cast dancers. I was stunned. I thought it must be a mistake.

  The prince’s first entrance was in the middle of a high-society ball. I had to enter at the far-back center stage and come down some steps with people on both sides of the stage standing back in silence and admiration. But walking down those steps was like walking on hot coals for me. Everything felt unnatural and awkward.

  “Li, you’re too sweet and too nice,” Ben said and stopped the pianist. “Go back and do it again. I want more arrogance.”

  I was shaking with embarrassment. I was twenty, and I still had no idea what an arrogant prince would feel like. But Ben made me repeat it over and over again, and by the time he went on with the rest of the rehearsal my practice clothes were soaked with sweat.

  But it paid off. My inhibitions went. I eventually enjoyed portraying this arrogant prince, a prince who would have been considered evil in communist China. And here I was, portraying him with pride. I had made a fundamental shift in my dancing.

  The two weeks in New York allowed me to really taste that city. I fell in love with it. Everywhere I went I made new friends. New York was full of artists. So many wonderful classes to choose from. It seemed that ballet teachers and dancers were everywhere, even choreographers. One day when I was taking a class at the School of American Ballet, I bumped into George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins, two of the most highly regarded American choreographers in the world. The famous Danish teacher Stanley Williams taught class that day and many dancers from the New York City Ballet, including one of their stars, Peter Martins, were in that class. For me, a peasant boy from Qingdao, it was amazing.

  Another day, I remember peering into the American Ballet Theater’s studio and seeing Baryshnikov doing a barre. I couldn’t believe my eyes! This was the man I had admired for so long! But how little he was! How could such great dancing be coming from such a small body? Then the following day, in the same studio, there was Natalia Makarova sitting on the floor doing her stretches. And a day later I found myself standing on the same barre as Gelsey Kirkland, the very same Sugarplum Fairy who danced brilliantly with Baryshnikov in that Nutcracker video I’d watched in China. I would never forget her quality. Every movement was performed to perfection, every detail demonstrated with precision. I was meeting people and experiencing things that I had only dreamed about in China. It was magical, and New York was the focus.

  During the two weeks I was in New York, Elizabeth and I communicated through just one secret phone call. I missed her the whole time. My feelings about leaving her and going back to China became unbearable. Duty toward my motherland, responsibility for my family, the desire for Western freedom—I thought I had made up my mind to go back to China, but now I was wavering. What does China have to offer you? The Red Detachment of Women? The dance world is yours to explore and conquer here. You have a beautiful American girl who loves you dearly. What more do you want? Don’t go back. But then I thought of my parents, my brothers, my friends back in China. What about Teacher Xiao and Teacher Zhang? What about Ben and his relationship with China? You will destroy them all if you stay. And they have done so much for you.

  It was in this confused, guilt-ridden state of mind that I returned to Houston, with only three days left before returning to China. Zhang and I spent the morning shopping for presents for friends and family back in China, and that afternoon I met Elizabeth two blocks away from Ben’s apartment.

  “I missed you!” she said, and immediately sensed my unease. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing wrong,” I replied, but my heart was screaming. “Let’s go to Chinatown and see a movie.”

  First we went to a gift shop where I bought Preston Frazier a decorative Chinese plate as a farewell present. Then I bought Elizabeth a Chinese jade ring. “For our friendship,” I said.

  She looked at me tenderly. “Thank you,” she replied.

  In the dark of the movie theater a Taiwanese film with English subtitles had already started. Forget about the movie, go to her apartment, a voice inside me said. No, you can’t do that! Be strong or you will wallow in a greater mess, another voice replied.

  Half an hour after the movie finished we were lying on the bed in Elizabeth’s one-bedroom rented apartment, once more immersed in our passionate love. This was too much. You love her. Stay.

  I called Lori. It was late afternoon. “Hi, Big Ballerina,” I said. “I and Elizabeth, come talk with you?” I asked.

  “Li, the Big Ballerino! Sure, when do you want to come?”

  “Now okay?” I asked.

  “Now? Okay,” she replied.

  Lori’s apartment was half a block away from Elizabeth’s and we were there in no time. “I want marry Elizabeth!” I said to Lori and Dilworth as soon as we walked in.

  Lori gave Elizabeth and me a passionate hug. She was nearly in tears, she was so happy. Then she became more serious. “Have you told Ben yet?” she asked.

  “No. I don’t know how or when. He wouldn’t like. He will kill me and Elizabeth when he find out, because he love China too much.”

  “Who cares about that,” Dilworth barged in. “Let’s have a wedding party!”

  “In two days I go back China. No time for wedding,” I said.

  “Well, you could get married in a courthouse. It will only take a couple of hours. Dilworth and I can be your witnesses,” Lori suggested.

  So at ten the next morning in the Harris County Courthouse, Elizabeth and I made our vows as husband and wife, Lori and Dilworth by our sides. Elizabeth quickly kissed me, and Lori and Dilworth clapped.

  After we signed the marriage documents, the four of us walked out of the courthouse into a beautiful April day. I’m married. I’ve married Elizabeth, I thought. And then immediately, what have I done to Ben?

  “When are you going to tell Ben?” Elizabeth asked.

  “Don’t know. Not today. Big party tonight! Maybe tomorrow,” I replied. Ben and the company had planned a farewell party for Zhang and me for our second-to-last night in America.

  “We’ll have our first night together tomorrow then. I can’t wait,” she said.

  “Ben will be very angry. I don’t know what he will do.” I felt disoriented. I couldn’t stop thinking of what I had done—I had done something behind Ben’s back. Once more, happiness was overshadowed by guilt.

  “Don’t be afraid. We have each other,” said Elizabeth. “You can dance anywhere. We can dance in Florida together, they will love you there!”

  “Yes, we have each other,” I repeated.

  We did. We had each other. But neither of us knew how important that would be, only the very next day.

  There were over a hundred dancers and friends at the farewell party for Zhang and me that night, held in the main dance studio. Elizabeth was there too. Everyone brought us presents and wished Zhang and me happiness. I felt like screaming, I’m married! I won’t be going back to China tomorrow! Take your presents back! But I couldn’t. Instead I p
ut on a pleasant face, thanked everyone for their kindness and continued the deception.

  Elizabeth and I had our first dance together that night. “This is our wedding dance,” she whispered. “Are you happy?”

  I nodded but I felt uncomfortable with Zhang and me being the center of attention. Lori and Dilworth were there too, and the four of us pretended nothing special had happened. Lori’s present to me that night was a badge. It said “Don’t let the turkeys get you down.” It showed a turkey standing on a pile of turkey shit with other turkeys standing threateningly around him. I didn’t really understand it, but I pinned it to my shirt all the same.

  The following morning, the day before I was to return to China, I called Elizabeth at Dilworth’s as soon as Ben and Zhang had gone out. Elizabeth, Dilworth and Lori arrived and loaded up my belongings. Then we went up to Lori’s apartment to make the phone call I dreaded most.

  “Hello?” Ben answered.

  “Ben, I want tell you something,” I said straightaway. “I’m married. I’m not go back to China.”

  Silence.

  Eventually, “No, Li, you didn’t. Who?”

  “Elizabeth Mackey,” I replied.

  “Elizabeth? You can’t be married!” he was virtually shouting now. “You are going back to China! Tomorrow!”

  “Ben, listen. I love Elizabeth, she is my wife. I take her to China later when I have money, but not tomorrow,” I said.

  “Li, I can’t believe this! You are destroying everybody’s lives. I won’t ever be allowed back to China!”

  My heart was torn by his words. I knew it was true. I alone would be responsible for creating so much pain for others. I knew Ben had been negotiating with the Chinese government to take some dancers to China—now his plans would be ruined. But I felt like I was being swept up into a whirlpool and only fate could determine the outcome. I wanted to worry about Ben and his plans, but I couldn’t.