Mao's Last Dancer - Li Cunxin [72]
In spite of his words, I noticed he was in a better mood than the first night. “Comrade, I’m sorry that I have to lie to you but I must see Minister Wang, even just for one minute.” I told him the reason I wanted to see the minister. I begged him to give me a chance. “I promise I’ll only take one minute of his time.”
“Okay, but I don’t know when the minister will be back, and I can’t guarantee that he will see you.”
This time I didn’t have to hide at the end of the street. I walked back and forth, going over what I would say to the minister for the hundredth time.
Just before ten o’clock the guard called me over. “I am going inside at midnight. If the minister is still not back I can’t guarantee my replacement will let you hang around.” Then he hesitated. “What’s America like?” he asked.
“What do you want to know?” I asked.
“Anything!” he replied eagerly.
I told him about the cars, the tall buildings, the ATM machines …
“People can get money out of a machine in a wall?” He was very amused.
I was careful not to show too much enthusiasm about America. When I told him about the guards at the White House with no machine guns, he was amazed.
“It’s true. Security is very lax there.”
“Is the White House really white?” he asked.
“Yes,” I replied, trying to sound as though I didn’t care much about the White House at all.
“I can’t believe they let a Chinese ballet student get so close!” Under the dim light I could see his expression of disbelief. To leave no doubt in his mind about my commitment to communism, I told him that I despised our class enemies in America and I was sympathetic toward the American poor. But I could tell he was more interested in hearing about things like ATM machines.
About an hour later, two bright headlights appeared from one end of the street.
“Stand aside, this is him,” the guard said and quickly walked to the driver’s side. I couldn’t hear what he said but a couple of minutes later the minister’s car drove through the entrance. The guard pulled the gate closed. “Sorry, Xiao Li. The minister didn’t want to see you.”
“What did you tell him?” My heart was still palpitating.
“I told him why you were here and that you’d been here for several nights. But all he said was ‘Drive on.’ He was rather annoyed.”
I walked away under the faint streetlight. That was my very last chance. I would never go back to America now. I had been beaten. “How could you think your existence would mean so much to the communist cause!” I told myself. “Do you imagine an important leader such as Minister Wang would spend a single second thinking about you, a mere peasant boy?” How foolish to believe everyone was equal in China. I had believed this communist doctrine for so many years. But in the minister’s eyes I was no one. He didn’t even bother to glance out of his car at this eager and pathetic boy.
I thought bitterly of the minister riding away in his flashy car. I thought of a story we’d been told at school about Mao not eating pork, deliberately suffering hardships just like the rest of us, and I seethed with rage.
I realized then that China was like any other nation on earth. There was no equality. But I, like all the Chinese people, had given Chairman Mao and his government my unwavering support for so many years. I never questioned them. What choice did we have? “Cunxin, it’s time to wake up. The government and Minister Wang are no longer there for you. You have to look after yourself. You only have one life to live,” I told myself.
I went back to the academy and lay awake until the early hours of the morning.
I didn’t hear the wake-up bell. I didn’t wake when the Bandit shook me at lunchtime, and I slept through the morning classes and afternoon rehearsals. I felt someone putting his hand on my forehead to feel my temperature. “Cunxin has a fever,” I heard them say. My throat throbbed. My bones ached. My entire body was burning. But the most painful thing was my memory of the night before. Sleep was the only thing that