Mao's Last Dancer (Movie Tie-In)

by Li Cunxin

  With a trembling hand I dialed his number and prepared myself for bad news.

  “Cunxin! Congratulations! You have been granted permission to go back to China. You and your wife can come to the consulate any time to apply for your visas.”

  At last. I was going home.

  28

  GOING HOME

  Mary and I had to finish our May performances in Houston before we could depart for China. Two months more of waiting. By the time we were ready to leave, we had five suitcases full of gifts and had organized to send two refrigerators on ahead for my family back home. Mary couldn’t quite understand the gift-buying frenzy. In her mind, giving them money would have been far better. But for me, the gifts were part of the Chinese tradition I was accustomed to.

  The thought of seeing every one of my brothers, my uncles, aunties and friends from my childhood, and especially my friends in Beijing—the Bandit, Teacher Xiao, Chong Xiongjun and Fengtian—made me overwhelmingly restless. These loved ones had only existed in my dreams for the past nine years. Now, each passing day seemed like a month. I grew impatient. I tried meditation to distract me from my obsessive longing, but I simply couldn’t wait a day longer.

  I usually had no trouble sleeping on planes, but the trip home to China was different. There seemed to be a spring in my eyelids, and every time I tried to close them they just popped right open again.

  Even though I’d already told Mary so much about everyone who was important to me in China, she wanted to know more, always more. She asked me so many questions, and she was just as excited as I was. We had so little sleep on that trip. But we didn’t feel tired. We lived on adrenaline and excitement.

  Beijing Airport, 3 June 1988. It was around seven in the evening when we landed. It was summertime, and the weather was warm. My blood brother, the Bandit, and my violinist friend, Fengtian, were to meet us. And there they were, waiting in the crowd outside the baggage carousel. I rushed toward them, each of us with eyes full of tears, arms outstretched ready to shake hands, which was the correct thing to do for Chinese people in public. But instead, in a split second, I pulled them toward me and we hugged and hugged, sobbing on each other’s shoulders.

  “It’s been a long time,” the Bandit finally murmured.

  I said nothing, only hugged him tighter.

  I wanted to say so much, but no words could describe my joy. I had imagined this moment over and over, incessantly, for the last nine years.

  The airport in Beijing was the same one that I’d left from in 1979. But now it was much grander, with a massive extension. By the time we hauled our luggage onto the minibus it was nearly 10 p.m., but the place was still crowded and there were long lines of taxis busily loading people in and out. Things had changed, I thought. When I’d left, air travel was well out of the reach of most Chinese and a taxi was a rare sight indeed.

  Our minibus sped onto a dimly lit road toward a hotel in the city where the Bandit had booked a room for us. We talked nonstop. So many questions to ask each other. It was impossible to cram the past nine years into the two hours of this minibus trip. The only times the conversation paused was for me to translate for Mary.

  Mary looked on in amazement all through the trip. She was speechless. This reunion. The long-lost friendship. She couldn’t believe how much love there was between the Bandit and me.

  By now both the Bandit and Fengtian had married. The Bandit’s wife, Marji, was a manager in a foreign joint-venture four-star hotel. She spoke fluent English, so she could translate for Mary too. Fengtian’s wife, Jiping, was a Chinese folk-dance teacher at the Beijing Dance Academy. On that bus trip to our hotel, Marji, Jiping and Mary immediately became good friends.

  But just before we arrived at our hotel, the Bandit told me something else. Something unsettling. The Chinese secret police wanted to see me.

  Not again, I thought to myself. But they were already waiting for me when we arrived at the hotel. Two men and a woman. They wanted to talk to me, alone, but Mary refused to leave me. She said she couldn’t understand Chinese anyway, so what difference would it make? That wasn’t entirely true: by then Mary could speak and understand some Chinese, but the officials didn’t know that so they relented and let her stay.

  The Chinese secret police asked me a lot of questions, mainly about the defection in 1981. They asked me again if there was any Taiwanese or American government involvement. There were two conflicting reports, they said, from the consulate in Houston and from the embassy in Washington. They wanted to know which was closer to the truth. They were very polite and I never really felt in danger, but they did say that, for my safety, they would provide me with discreet protection. I knew what that meant. They were going to keep an eye on me.

  Mary and I stayed in Beijing at first and spent every minute with my friends. The Bandit told me all that had happened since I’d left: he was now a soloist at the Central Ballet of China. Both Fengtian and Chong Xiongjun had been selected by the Song and Dance Company of China. Chong was married too, to a nice lady who worked at a clothing factory in Beijing. Much had happened. I had been away so long.

  So, on the back of the Bandit’s and Fengtian’s bikes, Mary and I traveled around Beijing. Sometimes we ate at their homes and other times I tried to show Mary some of the small eateries that had existed during my youth, but many places I had once known had either been torn down or had changed ownership as China had gone through rapid change. I was surprised. And impressed. Even though there were signs of prosperity everywhere and the progress I was witnessing far exceeded my expectations, still, the massive number of bicycles, the polluted air and the millions of pedestrians were all so familiar to me. There seemed to be much more freedom. People were happier. The influence of Mao and the grim shadow of the Cultural Revolution had begun to lift. Now Deng Xiaoping’s “Get rich is glorious” slogan was on everyone’s lips, and was splashed around on enormous billboards everywhere.

  We had been in Beijing for a couple of days when I asked the Bandit if I could visit my former teachers at the Beijing Dance Academy. The Bandit was my liaison with the academy officials, but it wasn’t until our third day in Beijing that I finally received permission to go.

  It was a hot summer morning. Mary and I rode through the narrow backstreets with the Bandit and Fengtian, and I breathed in and savored the familiar Beijing smells: there seemed to be a food stand on every corner. Street merchants were shouting, everyone trying to compete with each other for attention. By the time we reached the Beijing Dance Academy it was around ten o’clock.

  There it was. The small windows of our three-story sleeping quarters—the building with the blocked toilets, the building where eight of us slept on four-bed bunks in one small room. There was the metal gate, its familiarity immediately triggering vivid memories of the years I spent inside it. The discipline, the 5.30 a.m. wake-up bells, jogging in Taoranting Park, the early-morning exercise sessions, rush hour for the toilets, waiting in line for our food in the canteen, the self-criticisms, the endless political study sessions, the nights when I climbed over this gate after my desperate attempts to see Minister Wang. And I remembered most of all the two people who were instrumental in helping to create the success I now enjoyed: Teacher Xiao and Zhang Shu.

  Suddenly, before I could go on with my thoughts, I saw them. Both of them—Teacher Xiao and Zhang Shu—waiting for me on the other side of the gate.

  My heart was full of emotions that I wanted to express, but I couldn’t speak a word. Teacher Xiao and Zhang Shu opened the gate and rushed toward me.

  We could only shake hands and look at each other through tear-filled eyes. It was like a dream. I couldn’t think of anything to say: my tears had flooded my brain. So instead I put all my love, gratitude and years of unspoken words into our passionate handshaking. It was only when the Bandit reminded me that I should introduce Mary to them that I was jolted back to the present.

  The academy looked exactly the same as when I had left it nine years ago. Ther
e was the guardhouse by the gate, and the small sports ground. There were the canteens, the hot-water heater room, the studio building and the Ping-Pong tables beside it. Everything was there. Nothing had changed, except that the buildings seemed even more run-down than I remembered.

  Within only a few minutes a small crowd of familiar faces surrounded me. Most were teachers, among them my first ballet teacher, Chen Lueng, and one of my Chinese folk dance teachers, Ma Lixie. They all wanted to talk to me and asked many questions. Eventually Teacher Xiao and Zhang Shu had to remind me that all the other ballet teachers were eagerly waiting for me too, and that we should make our way inside.

  We walked into a roomful of faces. The teachers of the ballet department had prepared tea for us, with roasted peanuts, sunflower seeds, even some cut-up watermelon. We sat around and talked. Zhang Shu, I discovered, was still the head of the ballet department. I also found out that they knew of some of my achievements and that they were especially impressed by the medals I’d won at the international ballet competitions. We talked and talked. I thanked every one of them for what they’d done for me. I asked what they would like me to do for them while I was there. “Dance for us!” Teacher Xiao said.

  People cheered at his suggestion and I understood then how much they wanted me to show them what I’d learned in the West in the past nine years. I had no dancing gear with me, so Teacher Xiao lent me a pair of tights and some ballet shoes. But they had to keep the teachers from the other dance departments and all the academy students away—China might have changed, but in the officials’ minds I was still too much of a Western influence.

  My audience gathered in front of me, in that old dance studio once more, the same one where I had endlessly practiced my pirouettes and had left dents in the wooden floor. I noticed the familiar smell of mildew mixed with sweat and saw again the dust motes floating in the air through the beams of sunlight. It was all still there, in every detail. Here I was, standing in front of my former teachers, nervous to dance in front of those familiar, critical eyes. It felt like my very first exam in my first year at the Beijing Dance Academy. I felt like I was eleven years old again.

  I decided to dance the prince solo from Act Three of Swan Lake. There was no music, so I danced while my audience hummed the tune. Without the costumes, the makeup and the music, it felt so bare and disjointed. How I wished I could show them one of Ben’s awesome productions. But I could tell from my teachers’ eyes that they were proud of what I had achieved in dance—their long-lost son had finally returned.

  I also danced one of the solos from Glen Tetley’s Le Sacre du Printemps and Christopher Bruce’s Ghost Dances while Mary obligingly hummed the tunes. We chatted in between my demonstrations, but they asked me so many questions and were so hungry for Western knowledge that after two hours I was exhausted.

  “All right, all right, let’s not kill Cunxin off!” Teacher Xiao said finally.

  We left the old dance studio and went to Teacher Xiao’s little apartment in the academy grounds. His wife cooked us a beautiful lunch and we continued to talk and talk. There was so much to catch up on. Teacher Xiao was now the co-head of the choreography department and had been promoted to professor.

  “Cunxin, I couldn’t tell you how many times I have dreamed about your dancing!” Teacher Xiao said. “I always wondered if I would ever see you dance again before I died. I’m honored to have been your teacher! You have done Chinese ballet proud, all over the world.”

  We hugged each other tight. I had been so afraid that I would disappoint him. Teacher Xiao was the person whose opinion mattered most to me. He was the one who had shown me how beautiful ballet could be. He was the one who’d encouraged me to taste the mango. He was my mentor, my friend, the one man to whom I owed so much.

  After our lunch, I showed Mary the stairs where I had done my hops and the studios where I had worked and sweated for all those years. She was shocked. Compared to what she was used to the conditions were very primitive. We sat in the dimly lit school theater where she had watched our performance that time, back in 1979. Our paths had crossed then, in this very place, and now here we were again, sitting on the old splintered wooden seats. I closed my eyes. Into my mind flooded so many memories. My performances of Madame Mao’s model ballets. Teacher Xiao’s unattainable pirouettes. The theaterful of teachers and students chanting Mao’s political slogans . . .

  I don’t know how long I sat there dreaming of the past, but when I opened my eyes Mary was looking at me intently. “I can’t believe this is really where you have come from,” she said.

  Before leaving Beijing I wanted to host a party at my hotel restaurant for all of my old teachers and classmates. It was a wonderful reunion, but bittersweet as well. There were many happy tears that night. One of the academy officials delivered a speech, welcoming me back to China, and I was urged to respond. I introduced Mary as an exceptional dancer in her own right and went on to say that this was one of the most exciting days of my life. “To be able to see you all is a millet dream come true. How many times I wished to be able to see you all! Sixteen years ago, thanks to Madame Mao, I was selected to join the Beijing Dance Academy. I was just a peasant boy. I knew nothing of ballet. I was homesick, a lost cause. But over those seven years you taught me and cared for me and befriended me. You have given me things I can never repay. I don’t know where I would be today without you.”

  “You would be back in Li Commune!” the Bandit shouted, and there was much laughter.

  Yes, I thought, I would be back home in Li Commune, eating dried yams and drinking northwest wind.

  29

  BACK IN MY VILLAGE

  The next day Mary and I were on an old prop-driven plane flying to Qingdao.

  I was finally going home. I would see all my brothers, their wives and children, after all these years. But I wasn’t sure what to expect. What would my village and commune look like now? Would there be as much change there as I had seen in Beijing? How were my uncles, aunts, cousins and all my childhood friends? What would they think of Mary? All my friends in Beijing had adored her, and I wanted my family to feel the same. I wished the plane would fly on just a little bit faster.

  Mary understood exactly how I felt. She held my hand the whole way.

  As the plane was descending toward Qingdao, Mary said, “Li, take a deep breath and enjoy your family.” But still I wondered what she would think of the harsh conditions she was about to encounter.

  The landing was rough. Our plane slid toward a simple two-story building. I looked out the window at my first glimpse of home.

  But . . . where is this? The surroundings seemed familiar, but unfamiliar too. Then suddenly I saw a line of large trees in the distance, and I realized with a thud in my heart exactly where we were. This was the old airport, the very same airport where I had dug the half-burned coal from under the runway when I was a small boy. I remembered being there with my brothers, of being shot at by the army guards, of dropping my basket and spade and running, terrified, for my life. Now the two-story building stood where the old guardhouse used to be, and smooth run-ways spread out in different directions. The vision from my childhood days vanished in an instant.

  All of my brothers, except my fourth brother, were at the airport waiting for us, with their wives and children, over twenty family members in total. I shook hands with all of them. I wanted to hug each one just as I had done with the Bandit and Fengtian, but I was afraid that this would embarrass them too much. This was not Beijing. This was just a small country town.

  All of my brothers looked older than I remembered. We met all the sisters-in-law, and all the children immediately called Mary and me Sixth Mother and Sixth Father, but Mary attracted the greatest attention. Even strangers at the airport asked my brothers who this Western girl was. “Our sister-in-law!” my brothers proudly replied, and they all fought to carry our suitcases.

  My family had borrowed two trucks to take us home. Mary was pushed into the front seat of one,
next to the driver, and I was pushed into the other, and the rest of the family members piled into the back of each truck.

  Along the dusty road on the way to my old village I once again smelled the familiar country air—full of the scent of human waste still used as fertilizer in the fields. Childhood memories returned once more. I loved this distinctive manure smell. It was the smell of my own town, and at long last I knew I was really home.

  As our trucks slowly rolled down the old streets, people lit up firecrackers to celebrate my return. All the villagers had come out to greet us, standing on both sides of the streets, waving at us as we passed. Some I recognized, many I couldn’t. After nine years, the countless older uncles and aunts, younger uncles and aunts, great-grand-uncles and grand-aunts, grand-nephews and their wives, had all gotten mixed up in my mind, with the exception of a very few. I couldn’t even remember what their proper titles were. All I could do was nod my head, smile and repeat “Ni hao,” “Ni hao,” “Ni hao . . .”

  As soon as my family saw our truck turn into our street, my fourth brother, who had stayed home to help Niang prepare food, lit a long string of firecrackers. More firecrackers! It was just like it was when I was a small boy—the noise, the light, the smoke, the smell of gunpowder and the flying fragments of red paper.

  Our trucks stopped, and a sea of people gathered around us.

  And then, through the crowd, I glimpsed my parents. They were standing by our gate with my fourth uncle and aunt, happy and proud. I rushed to them. I hugged Niang. I shook hands with Dia and Fourth Uncle. Just as I was going to shake my fourth auntie’s hand, Niang threw herself at me and hugged me tight. “Oh, my sixth son! I missed you!” she sobbed.

  Mary had gotten down from the other truck by now, and immediately people’s attention turned to her. As she walked toward me, the villagers parted the way for her, whispering about the color of her hair, the size of her nose, the pattern of her shirt, the height of her heels. Mary was the first Westerner to come to the village since 1949. She was a sensation.