Mao's Last Dancer (Movie Tie-In)

by Li Cunxin

  For the competition in Moscow we competed on the historic Bolshoi stage. It was huge, but it was also raked. When I jumped up the stage it felt like I was pushing uphill. When I did my turns my weight fell toward the audience. Becoming accustomed to this type of stage takes two to three weeks, but this entire competition only ran for two weeks. American stages were all flat. Most European stages were raked, but the Bolshoi was famous for its very steep rake, and it proved disastrous for me. Two minutes before the curtain went up on my first round, I slipped just as I was taking off for a grand jeté. My body crashed to the floor and I landed hard on my back. Stars flashed in front of my eyes. A sharp pain traveled down my neck and lower back. I knew at once that I had a serious injury, but when I thought about the huge efforts Ben and the Houstonians had put into getting me to Moscow, I knew I had to continue. I couldn’t possibly let them down.

  I tried to regroup. I tried to concentrate. But before I could really assess my injury, I was called to places. The performance was about to begin.

  My legs felt weak, especially when I pushed off for jumps, and my turns were wobbly. I heard the music but my mind could think only of the pain in my neck and back. All I can remember was trying to get this first solo over with. How I wished I’d had some painkillers with me. But I’d left my anti-inflammatory pills at my hotel, and anyway, I doubted there was enough time for the medication to work. The Giselle solo went like a blur and before I knew it I was on stage for my second solo—from the Coppelia wedding scene.

  I got through the first round but in the second round my back worsened. I went to see a Russian doctor. He said I just had a muscle spasm—it would go away with some massage. But it didn’t. I’d had muscle spasms before. This wasn’t like anything I had ever experienced. I couldn’t even tie my shoelaces. I tried to remember the pain of my torn hamstrings during my Beijing Opera Movement classes back in China. I tried to remember that at least here I had the freedom to choose whether I would perform or not. Here I could simply stop the competition, pack up and go back to America.

  Because of the injury Ben had to modify my classical solo for the second round. It was so simplified that the judges must have thought I was deliberately avoiding the difficult steps. However, for my contemporary solo, I had never received so many curtain calls in my entire dance career. But then the Russian judges complained that this ballet was politically motivated. It was anticommunist, they said. Ben and I were astounded.

  By the time I finished the second round I was having trouble even getting up from my bed in the mornings. The pain had started to travel down my legs and the heavy-duty painkillers I was taking did nothing but make me drowsy and my muscles numb. I challenged myself to finish, despite my injuries, but decided this was going to be my last ballet competition. I’d had enough of the politics and dramas and, although the medals gave me some international recognition, they would never make me a better dancer or a better human being.

  There were other things to worry about during that competition too. Disturbing things. During the course of that week both Ben’s room and my room were trashed. Some of Ben’s belongings were missing, and my alarm clock had been smashed to pieces. I remember feeling uncomfortable, unsafe. It was as though we were being watched.

  Then, just as the competition ended, the Russian authorities asked to check the entry visa in my passport. They said there might be problems. The U.S. delegation said they thought it would be safer for me to go with them to Leningrad and leave Russia from there rather than from Moscow.

  I was happy to go home via Leningrad. Leningrad was where the Kirov Ballet and the Vaganova Ballet School were based, so I would have the opportunity of visiting the Mariinsky Theater where the Kirov Ballet performed and of visiting the Vaganova Ballet School. I remember watching the Kirov Ballet perform Sleeping Beauty, and I remember paying homage to the inventor of my ballet training method, the great Vaganova Ballet School. I was eternally grateful for that wonderful training.

  In the end I received a bronze medal from that Moscow competition. The judges normally sign all the certificates before they are handed out, but when I received my competition certificate it was unsigned. I could not help but think about the Russians and their hatred of defectors and I knew that, in their eyes, I was no different.

  By the time I left Russia my back had completely seized up, and the pain was increasing. But as soon as I returned to Houston two things happened. Janie Parker and I went to Chile to perform in a gala, which was already scheduled, even though my back was getting worse by the day. And Mary McKendry from the London Festival Ballet came to join the Houston Ballet as a principal dancer.

  “Jeano, is it true that Mary McKendry is coming?” I asked our general manager eagerly.

  “Yes, a real coup,” he replied, beaming. “Make sure you treat her well. We can’t afford to lose her.”

  After Janie and I returned from Chile I met Mary again in class the following morning. She and I immediately started to rehearse the leading roles in Sleeping Beauty. It had been eighteen months since I’d met her in London. I was so happy that Ben had paired us together. But I wasn’t sure whether my back would hold up.

  I didn’t know what to make of Mary at first. She struck me as brutally honest in her opinions—and in her dancing. She was a perfectionist, as I was.

  One movement we had to rehearse in that first week was a sequence of three “fish dives,” where Mary had to do a double turn on one pointe and then I would pick her up by her waist and she would dive forward and finish with her face inches away from the floor, both of her legs high in the air. It was one of my favorite movements to practice and perform.

  My back pain, however, prevented me from rehearsing this with Mary. She urged me to see a doctor. But I didn’t want to: I didn’t want to lose my first opportunity to dance with her. So we continued to work together for another week, but by then the pain was excruciating and after a CT scan the doctors informed me that I had two, possibly three, herniated disks in my lower back.

  The doctors immediately ordered me to stop dancing. Bed rest only, for as long as it took my injury to heal. Otherwise, they said, I might have to have surgery, with less than a 50 percent success rate.

  I was devastated. I had lost my first opportunity to work with Mary, and frighteningly, I faced the possibility of never being able to dance again.

  That night I lay in my bed and thought of all that this might mean to my life. Ballet was all I knew, all I had known since the age of eleven. It was my passion, my identity. How could I, once again, be left on my own with an unknown future? Now I was the soaring bird suddenly shot down. I was a caged tiger once more. My frustration and despair were enormous.

  I knew the only way for me to recover was to be as disciplined and dedicated with my rehabilitation as I had been with my dancing. So I taught myself to meditate. I taught myself to control my frustration and pain. I had no choice but to overcome it.

  I wouldn’t let my insecurity overwhelm me, but during this time I missed my niang dreadfully. I didn’t want my parents to worry about me, so I didn’t tell them about my injury. Instead I asked them to apply for visas and come to America for a second time.

  Mary visited me during that period, even though she didn’t really know me very well. It was then that she asked me if I had books to read. She loved reading and was appalled when I said I read very little. I told her about my reading experience with Black Beauty.

  “Read something shorter and easier to start with! Don’t worry about what each word means exactly. It’s hard even for Western people to understand every word. English is a difficult language. Just try to get the story, even if you have to guess to start with. You’ll get so much pleasure out of reading, I promise!”

  So for nearly three months, friends and fans brought me food, videotapes—and books. I took Mary’s advice. I just started to read short things: newspaper articles and short storybooks. Then I tried longer books: Romeo and Juliet was one of my favorites. I eve
n attempted The Hobbit, though I found the language in both these books hard to comprehend. But still I found it fascinating, and I especially loved Tolkien’s extraordinary characters.

  So Mary introduced me to literature and once I started reading I couldn’t stop, couldn’t believe the stories I had been missing out on. I worked hard at keeping my mental focus over those three months as I was lying on my bed. I had a secret plan—the Houston Ballet was going to perform in New York City in October. That was less than four months away. Ben and my doctors doubted I would make it back by then. But I never lost hope. I had acupuncture treatments, homeopathy, Chinese herbal medicines, and a wonderful masseur who Mary called “Mad Charles” and who worked with me constantly. He kept telling me that I would make it back to the stage, but the strengthening program seemed slow and painful, and many times I had my doubts.

  Eventually, however, my injuries gradually started to mend. The disk herniation never went away completely, but the strengthening program helped me build stronger abdominal and back muscles to support it and I had to do continual exercises to keep the injury in check.

  But finally I had made it back to the stage.

  27

  MARY

  Mary and I were back dancing together again, and we quickly became good friends. We trusted each other’s tastes in dancing and each other’s opinions in other aspects of life too.

  After a rehearsal one day, Mary invited me to her apartment for dinner. I arrived with a six-pack of beer in hand just as Mary was in the middle of making spaghetti carbonara.

  “Can I help?” I offered.

  “No, thank you! Just relax! Enjoy your beer. All is under control!” she replied a little too cheerily.

  I peered into the kitchen—and saw total chaos. There was a huge pot on the stove full of spaghetti which was all glued together. There was so much of it. Enough to serve at least ten people, I thought.

  “How many are coming for dinner?” I asked casually.

  “Oh, just the two of us!”

  I laughed. “It looks like you have enough food here to feed all of Mao’s army.”

  When the dinner was served the spaghetti was a lump and the sauce was very bland.

  “How did you learn to cook?” I asked.

  “I can’t cook! I’m hopeless in the kitchen! Can’t you tell? My mother is a good cook, but I never paid any attention while she was cooking. I’m sorry this is a bit gluey. It’s my first attempt at carbonara sauce,” Mary said apologetically.

  “Still tastes good though,” I said, trying to comfort her.

  “Would you like more? There’s plenty left!”

  “I know,” I replied. We looked at each other and burst into laughter. We laughed and laughed. Her first attempt to impress me with her cooking had definitely failed the test for a perfect Chinese wife. But her efforts and her honesty won me over completely and I liked her even more after that disastrous carbonara.

  My parents didn’t come back to America until February of 1986, four months after our New York tour I’d worked so hard to recover for. By then my relationship with Mary had gone beyond just being friends. Her love of literature had become a major influence on me, and I loved her open-mindedness and her curiosity. She constantly searched for new knowledge, not only in dance but in all aspects of life, and her tremendous inner strength and high principles seemed to be a match for my stubbornness. Mary could put me back in my place and set me straight anytime.

  We stayed together at each other’s places often by now. However, we decided that to avoid any unnecessary shock Mary shouldn’t stay overnight with me once my parents were here. Traditional Chinese marriage values couldn’t possibly allow us to sleep together without being married. My parents would never approve.

  Charles Foster got my parents a six-month visa this time. They were just as thrilled to see me and, though it still took them awhile to get over their culture shock, they were much more familiar with America this time around and enjoyed every bit of it. Their kindness and their love of life made them the center of attention among my friends. They were so well liked, and I was going to have them with me for the whole six months.

  After a performance one night I brought Mary home to have dinner with us. My niang cooked some of my favorite dumplings. It was almost midnight by the time we finished dinner, and before my parents went to bed my niang stopped and said, “Jing Hao, tell Mary, don’t go home tonight, it’s too late.”

  “But we only have two beds. Where is she going to sleep?” I asked innocently.

  “You’re a man now, do I have to tell you where she should sleep?”

  “You don’t mind if we sleep in the same bed?” I asked, red faced.

  “As long as you love each other, we don’t care what you do,” she replied. My niang looked at Mary. Then she whispered to me, “Of course we would prefer you to marry a Chinese girl who can look after you and cook for you as a Chinese wife could, but we know that we are old-fashioned. I can tell there is something special between you.” She paused. “We made a mess of arranging your second brother’s marriage. We will not interfere again.”

  Then my niang turned to Mary, who was just about to leave. “Mary, don’t go home tonight, it’s too late,” my niang said to her in Chinese.

  Before I could translate for her, I saw Mary’s face. She had understood.

  My parents’ liberal thinking surprised me greatly that night. I knew they liked Mary but I also knew that deep down they would have strong reservations about their son marrying another Western person, especially after my failed marriage with Elizabeth. Still, they left the matter entirely to my own judgment.

  But even I wasn’t completely sure whether Mary and I could cross our cultural boundaries successfully. Memories of my marriage to Elizabeth haunted me often. But then, Mary was like no other woman I had ever met. She had an unusual understanding of Eastern culture. She had the most generous spirit. She endlessly bombarded me with questions about my childhood, my family, about China and especially about my life at the Beijing Dance Academy. I asked about her family and childhood too, and about Australia in general. I had learned about Australia in our geography classes back at the academy and was always puzzled that such a huge country like Australia only had a population the same size as Shanghai’s. It was almost inconceivable.

  Mary had been in Houston for nearly a year by now. Our friendship grew stronger all the time, and my parents liked her more and more. Mary even began buying me clothes. “Do you like this?” she asked one day when we were out shopping, and she pulled a shirt off the rack.

  “No, no, don’t be ridiculous! I’ll never wear this! It’s too . . . colorful,” I said, horrified. The shirt was a mess of gaudy colors and hectic patterns, way too loud for me.

  “No, you will look so handsome in it! Let’s try it on,” she said enthusiastically.

  I put the shirt on and looked at myself in the mirror. I gasped.

  “There, you look like a colorful artist now,” Mary continued. “I knew you would look beautiful with a bit of color. It’s done. The shirt is yours.”

  I continued to study myself in the mirror. Gradually I got over the shock. The longer I lingered, the more I liked it. Maybe she was right. A bit of color did suit me. But there were so many colors and patterns! Compared to what I wore in China—the Mao jacket, the plain colors—this is very daring, I said to myself.

  A couple of days later Mary and I were invited to a post-performance dinner party. I decided to be brave and wear the shirt.

  “Where did you get this shirt? It looks great!” Ben said.

  “Mary bought it for me,” I replied proudly.

  That shirt became my favorite thing to wear. Later I even wore it to the White House to meet Vice President and Barbara Bush.

  Mary and I had formed a rapport, a chemistry, but we both knew that getting involved with someone within the same profession was going to be difficult. A dancer’s life was hard enough. Two dancers together would be impossible, e
specially two ambitious principal dancers like us. But there seemed to be a certain force drawing us closer all the time. I knew she was fond of me, and I knew she was special. I quietly wondered if I loved her, but still I wasn’t sure.

  Ben had paired Mary and me together for the leading roles in Peer Gynt at around this time. I vividly remember rehearsing a scene one day: Peer had been informed by Solveig’s little sister, Helga, that his mother was dying. Peer was torn between going back to his mother or staying with his beloved Solveig. Mary and I had to do this romantic, agonizing pas de deux together just before we parted on stage. There was a long phrase of beautiful, intensely sad music. Mary and I looked at each other and kissed each other good-bye.

  At that moment, we both had tears in our eyes. We stood there and looked at each other. We had no sense of time. We both knew, instantly. Our destiny together was inevitable.

  After that fateful moment I decided I would ask Mary to marry me. In fact I decided many times after that, but every time I managed to talk myself out of it. In the end I felt like I was fighting against an irresistible force.

  One day not long after our Peer Gynt rehearsal I was guest-performing with the Pittsburgh Ballet in Giselle, and I knew that Mary was having dinner with my parents back in Houston that night. I spoke to my parents over the phone, and made sure everything was all right. “Mary is looking after us. She is such a nice girl!” my niang told me.

  Then I spoke to Mary. “How is everything in Houston?” I asked.

  “Fine, your parents are adorable! I’ve just bought them some Chinese cabbage and pork, and they have made me some delicious dumplings!”

  “Mary, I miss you. I want to ask you something ...” My heart thumped as I spoke. I was so nervous and so hopelessly backward in trying to find the appropriate words. I just wanted to say, “Will you marry me?” but I was too scared. What if she said no?