Mao's Last Dancer - Li Cunxin [48]
The ballet expert was not as lucky. He had to clean floors, walls, and toilets. One day he was assigned to push a heavy two-wheeled cart while some of us loaded it with soil mixed with horse manure. Some of my classmates began calling him “the filthy rightist” and accused him of being lazy. I didn’t know what crime he had committed, but after a few trips of pushing the heavy cart I could tell he was exhausted and volunteered to help.
“Thank you, young man,” he said quietly. The next day, during one of our political meetings, I was accused of being weak because I’d felt sorry for the rightist.
“I wasn’t feeling sorry for him,” I lied. “I wanted to make the process faster so we could contribute more to the peasants.”
Later that same year, our academy auditioned some music students from all over China. They lived in a couple of small crowded rooms in our studio building. One of the violinists in that group, Liu Fengtian, was also a good hairdresser. I often asked him to cut my hair. He was the first person ever to use a pair of scissors on me. Before that, we roommates used to cut each other’s hair with a pair of blunt clippers. Liu Fengtian was a good violinist who played with real passion. I loved watching him practice. He became one of my closest friends.
In this third year my attitude toward dancing finally changed. For the first time since I had come to the academy I felt confident in my ballet class. I began to do well with our two new, difficult steps for the year: the single tour en l’air and the triple pirouette. With Teacher Xiao’s gentle nurturing I made noticeable progress. I worked hard, listened to every word he said, and wrote down my new discoveries in my diary every day. My rapid improvement surprised many of my teachers and classmates.
My progress in ballet also helped me in other classes, especially acrobatics. Now I was making good progress with backward somersaults, which I had been terrified of the year before. One day, as I was doing one, I thought the teachers were waiting and ready to support me. I was wrong. They had turned their attention to another student. I took off, then suddenly panicked because I couldn’t feel their hands supporting me. I crashed down from shoulder height, my back and head landing on the hard floor. I was knocked unconscious.
When I recovered, my teachers and my classmates were leaning over me with anxious, panicky looks. My head and neck throbbed with pain. They carried me to my bed to rest. At lunchtime, the Bandit and Fu Xijun brought me a bowl of noodle soup with an egg in it—a special treat.
No official assistance, no medical care, no X-ray was offered. I was told to go back to my normal routine that afternoon. But my neck pain was intense and persistent.
By the next Sunday I was no better and the Chongs took me to a local healer, who massaged my neck and cracked it with amazing force. A few days later the pain disappeared, but my neck often gave me problems after that accident.
A few weeks before our midyear exams, Teacher Xiao finished our class late. I was desperate to go to the toilet before our next class. As usual there was a long line. I was late for Gao’s Beijing Opera Movement class.
He stopped the music. “Here comes my prized student with the brainless big head! Why are you late?” he shouted.
I had intended to apologize and explain why I was late: to my great surprise, entirely different words came out. “I’m not a brainless big head! I do have a brain!” I stuttered.
“Get out of my class! Get out! Never come to my class again!” He pointed at the door, his face red with fury.
I ran to our dormitory and sat on my bed. I was in such a rage that I simply felt like killing him. He had treated me unfairly. He had called me names.
I couldn’t just stay in my room—I feared Teacher Gao might report me. I had to act fast. I ran to Teacher Xiao’s office and found him alone, reading. I stuttered my way through