Mao's Last Dancer - Li Cunxin [42]
“This was all I’d dream about.” I pushed the bowl in front of my dia, because I knew there wouldn’t be enough for everyone.
“Liuga, can you count how many times you ate meat there?” Jing Tring asked.
“Nearly every day!” I replied.
He was wide-eyed with disbelief.
There was silence.
“Madame Mao wouldn’t let her students starve, would she?” Niang said finally.
A few weeks before I arrived home Cunsang had been accepted by the Chinese navy. He was going to be a sailor on one of the battleships stationed in the Shandong Province area, so we talked about this as well. After dinner I took out the sweets I had bought in Beijing and everyone tasted a piece.
Before bed, when I was alone with my parents and Jing Tring, I handed my dia the three yuan I had saved.
With my second brother now working in the commune, I could tell that my family’s living conditions had improved slightly. They still ate the same kind of food but now there was a little more meat, fish, oil, soy sauce, and coal; plenty of dried yams; and, once a week, corn bread. My niang cooked me dumplings not once but a couple of times. Even so, there was never enough for everyone, and the dumplings traveled from my bowl to my niang’s, my niang’s back to mine, and then I would pass one to my dia. Niang would sigh yet again. “ Zhi, zhi, zhi! Silly boy, just eat them! I know you have good food to eat in Beijing, but you won’t be able to have my dumplings again for a whole year!”
My month at home went by as fast as the blink of an eye. I dreaded going back to the rigid routine of the university.
On my last night home, after dinner, when everyone except me and my parents had gone to bed, my dia handed me eight yuan.
“It’s too much,” I protested.
“Take it. Things are more expensive now. Our lives are looking up with your second brother working.” Then, completely unexpectedly, he handed me a sealed envelope. Inside I found the most beautiful fountain pen. It was deep blue, my favorite color. It would have cost my dia at least two yuan.
“I hope that every time you use it, you will remember your parents and our expectations of you,” my dia said. “I don’t know what grades your classmates have received, but I hope you will come home with better grades next year. Let us be proud.”
I had expected my parents to talk about my poor grades. I had expected harsher words. But that pen and my dia’s few words caused bigger waves inside me than any accusations could bring. He didn’t blame me. He didn’t accuse me, but I felt I had let my whole family down. I couldn’t bear to look at him. Instead, I looked at my niang, but she had buried her head in her sewing. I knew that every time I used my dia’s pen, his words would echo in my mind.
TWELVE
My Own Voice
This time the train trip back to Beijing was a happier experience, and settling in at the academy was easier. By now we could all communicate with each other in Mandarin. I couldn’t stop thinking about my dia’s pen, though, and his pride-provoking words. I knew that every time I used that pen, I would feel guilty, because my attitude toward my dancing hadn’t changed. I still hated it.
In May that year, Madame Mao visited our university again. This time I did get to perform for her and afterward we all gathered at the playground where she told us to study hard and be good students of Chairman Mao’s. She told the university heads that the dance students were technically weak, so additional classes were scheduled, including martial arts.
Madame Mao also ordered a young champion from the Beijing Martial Arts School and another from the Beijing Acrobatics School to join us as model students. They were awesome. I was especially impressed with Wang Lujun. He could master ten backflips in a row with ease and do “double flying legs” with incredible height. But his “butterfly” was the most difficult and exciting step to watch. You had to swing your body from right to left, with head and body at chest height, at the same time pushing both legs up in the air in a fanning motion. It looked