Mao's Last Dancer - Li Cunxin [25]
Then one day, just as my dia was going back to work after lunch, a group of village, commune, county, and city officials suddenly came into our small courtyard. My parents offered them tea. Eventually one of the officials turned to my niang. “Your lucky son Li Cunxin has been chosen for Madame Mao’s Beijing Dance Academy.”
I was stunned. We all were. A whole month had gone by! How could this be? My mother was speechless, but her face smiled like a full-bloomed flower. “Thank you! Thank you!” was all she could say.
My dia poured more and more tea for the officials. His face was filled with pride.
When the officials had left our house, my dia had to get to work. But he looked at me in a strange way, as though he was seeing something new.
After everyone had gone, my niang and I were left to ourselves. She looked at me for a long time, lost for words for the first time in her life. Finally she said, “My lucky boy, I’m so happy for you. This is the happiest day of my life!”
“I don’t want to leave you,” I said.
She looked at me with a slight frown. “Do you want to stay here and eat dried yams for the rest of your life? My dear son, this is your chance to escape from this cruel world. Go, and do something special with your life! Become someone other than a peasant boy. Don’t look back! What is here? A leaking roof, an empty stomach!”
“Stop it!” I said. I put my hand over her mouth. Happy tears welled in her eyes. She pulled me close and hugged me tight. I wanted us to stay like that forever.
“Can you come with me?” I asked eventually.
“Why? Do you want me to come and wipe your bottom, silly boy?” she replied with a chuckle. “No, I can’t go with you, but my love will. I will always love you, with all my heart. I know you have your secret dreams. Follow them. Make them come true. Now, go and play with your friends.” She gave me a gentle push, but just as I was disappearing into the streets, she called out: “Don’t forget to come back and help me with dinner!”
A few days after this, we received a letter notifying me that I was to leave for Beijing in four weeks, just after the Chinese New Year. For the opening of Madame Mao’s new Beijing Dance Academy, fifteen students had been selected from Shandong Province. Fifteen from over seventy million people. Twenty-five students from Shanghai, three students from Beijing, and one student from Inner Mongolia were also selected. It was February 1972. I had just turned eleven.
The whole village came to congratulate my parents. There would be one less mouth to feed and their sixth son had some hope of making a decent life for himself.
Our Chinese New Year was extra special. My eldest brother was home from Tibet. It was a joyous time.
A few days before New Year’s Eve, however, one of my “double kicker” firecrackers went wrong and exploded twice in my hand. It nearly tore off my thumbnail, and blood gushed out from under it. My parents immediately worried that this could jeopardize my chances of going to Beijing, so as an extra precaution they took me to the hospital to get my first tetanus shot, an expensive luxury. Normally nobody would have bothered. “Put some dust on it,” my niang would have said.
For my last dinner at home my niang has cooked a delicious meal. She’s made an egg dish with dried shrimp, and Chinese cabbage with pieces of pork. I can’t eat much, despite the good food. My stomach is full of anxiety and dread. I am afraid to look into my niang’s eyes: if I do I know my tears will overflow.
As soon as dinner is finished I announce that I am going to my friends’ houses to say good-bye.
“Be home early if you want to go tonight,” my niang says. “You should get some good sleep in your own bed.”
I quickly slip off the kang and go outside.
I have no intention of going to my friends’ houses. I just want to be alone. I pass my friends’ places but don’t go in. “You should be happy,” I keep telling myself. And I am, deep