A Girl Named Faithful Plum

by Richard Bernstein

  After leaving Comrade Tsang’s office the previous night, Zhongmei had felt a mix of emotions. Relief was the main one, relief that the exchange of apologies was over and seemed to have gone well. She felt that Tsang wasn’t her enemy anymore. Still, nothing had changed with Teacher Zhu, and Zhongmei’s feeling of relief quickly turned to a sort of dread when she thought about the ballet class she most likely wouldn’t be allowed to take that morning. Then she thought about the portrait of Chairman Mao in her home at Baoquanling and how it was telling her to dare to struggle, dare to win. She remembered Zhongqin’s words of encouragement, how she had told her to do her best and not give up, and with those memories, Zhongmei’s fear turned into resolve, and resolve turned into a plan.

  “I’m not going to just go to my corner and sit there,” Zhongmei told Xiaolan the night before, after she got back to the dormitory. “I’m going to stay at the barre no matter what.”

  “Oh, I don’t know if you should do that,” Xiaolan said.

  “Why not?” Zhongmei replied. “What can she do to me?”

  “She could accuse you of disobeying her. She could cause you lots of trouble.”

  “More trouble than she causes me already?”

  “Well, you have a point,” Xiaolan said, seeing the brilliance of Zhongmei’s plan. If Teacher Zhu complained to the higher-ups about Zhongmei’s behavior, she would have to explain why she hadn’t allowed her to take fundamentals of ballet, and she probably didn’t want the higher-ups to know about that.

  And so, there she was again after her two-week absence, determined to practice especially hard, because this wasn’t going to be an ordinary day. She went through her motions looking at herself in the mirror—first position, and demi-plié, fifth position, grand plié, and one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, and two, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, and three, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.… Zhongmei moved on to a combination, giving herself instructions: first, adagio, slow … plié, développé, battement tendu. Then she moved to a fouetté en tournant, her right toe touching her left knee, her left knee bending, a pirouette, and then again—slowly at first, then moving to allegro, a faster motion, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, and two, two, three, four, five, six, seven …

  There was a sound. It was a creaking noise, like footsteps on old wood. Zhongmei froze in mid-pirouette, staring at the studio door. Probably just the sound of an old building, she said to herself. She didn’t know exactly what time it was, but certainly nobody would be up now, besides herself and Old Zhou. The creaking got louder and closer. The studio door had a glass window that acted as a mirror, and terror gripped Zhongmei as the reflection began to change. Zhongmei saw a corner of the empty room reflected in the wobbly glass, then a darkened window above the ballet barre, then she herself standing a little farther along on the barre. The door was swinging open, and Zhongmei’s heart pounded wildly as Jia Zuoguang strode into the room.

  He looked very large, a giant. He seemed to fill the entire studio. Zhongmei felt that he was close to her and towering over her even though in truth he was standing quite far away.

  “Xiao mei zi,” he said—young girl. He pronounced the words in that fashion of adults when they are about to issue a reprimand. “What on earth are you doing?”

  “Um … I’m practicing,” Zhongmei replied.

  “Don’t you know that to be out of your room at this hour is against the rules,” Vice Director Jia said. “In fact, it’s a very serious infraction of the rules. You know that, of course.”

  “Yes,” Zhongmei said meekly. “I know it.”

  “I see that you are practicing,” Jia said, “but there is a time for practice and a time for rest, and now is the time for rest.”

  Zhongmei stared at the floor horrified at what was happening. She was there in studio two in order to avoid being expelled from school, and now she was going to be expelled anyway, for trying too hard not to be.

  “Only the other day you broke the rule against keeping an animal in the school,” Jia said. “And now you’re breaking another rule. This is very serious.”

  Zhongmei didn’t know what to say.

  “It’s a great privilege to study at this school,” Jia said. “It’s a gift given to you by the people of China, and you think you can do whatever you want?”

  Zhongmei stared at the floor.

  “Well, answer me. Do you think the rules and regulations weren’t meant for you?”

  “No,” Zhongmei said. “But—”

  “But nothing,” Jia interrupted. “Go to your dormitory and back to bed immediately. We’ll decide what to do about this later.”

  “Yes, sir,” Zhongmei replied, and she walked past him to the door. Her heart ached. She had ruined everything now. Now she would surely have to go back to Baoquanling in defeat, and she would have to go back right away. She wouldn’t even be able to wait until the end of the school year.

  But then she thought, Wait a minute. If I don’t learn on my own what the others are learning in fundamentals of ballet, I’ll fail the exams anyway, and they’ll send me home. No matter what I do, the outcome will be the same. And I’m doing nothing wrong. It’s like Yunqi. I broke a rule, but the rule was wrong. It shouldn’t be against the rules to save a kitten, and it shouldn’t be against the rules to practice on my own if my teacher doesn’t allow me to practice in class.

  Zhongmei turned around and walked back to the ballet barre under one of the dark windows of studio two.

  “I’m sorry, Vice Director Jia, but I don’t want to go back to bed,” she said.

  “What!” Vice Director Jia said, incredulous. “Didn’t you hear what I told you to do?”

  It would be hard to exaggerate how terrified Zhongmei felt, but once more she held her ground.

  “I know it’s against the rules to be up at night,” she said. “But it’s the only thing I can do.”

  “Explain yourself,” Vice Director Jia said. “What does that mean, it’s the only thing you can do?” He still looked stern, but Zhongmei detected a slight lessening of his anger, just a hint of kindness. “You have a full program of classes. Now you need your rest. You can ruin your health this way. The rules we have are for a purpose. They’re for your own good.”

  “I have to do this,” Zhongmei said quietly.

  “Why, may I ask?” Jia said, and like that day, which seemed eons ago, when he had given her a second chance at the audition improvisation, Zhongmei detected a shift from strictness to sympathy, or at least curiosity.

  “Because I’m slower than the other girls,” Zhongmei said. “I’m not as pretty or as graceful as they are, and I need extra practice to catch up. Or else I’m going to be sent home.”

  “First of all, I remember you from the audition, and you’re not a bit less pretty or graceful than the other girls,” Jia said, and Zhongmei’s heart took a hesitant leap at those words. Was this just flattery or was it true? “Second,” Jia continued, “you have the same classes as everybody else. If you need some special help, surely your teachers will give it to you.”

  With that, Zhongmei couldn’t help but give a rueful little chuckle.

  “You don’t know what … That’s just … No,” Zhongmei said. “I don’t get special help. I don’t get any help at all. I’m not even allowed to take the most important class in this school! And you think I can get extra help?”

  And with that, in a great outpouring of words and tears, Zhongmei explained to China’s most famous dancer how she had spent the whole school year so far having to sit in a corner in Teacher Zhu’s class, and how Teacher Zhu had ridiculed her when she had made her audition for her class, and how none of the rehearsal teachers would take her for their classes either. She told Vice Director Jia that Teacher Zhu and the other girls were saying that she would be sent home for good at the end of the year, and that’s why she was breaking the rule against being out of bed before the six o’clock wake-up bell.

  Jia listened i
n silence. He didn’t interrupt, and he didn’t seem angry anymore. But when she finished, he told her, “Nonetheless, rules are rules and are not to be broken. This is something you should have spoken to me about a long time ago, and now that you’ve taken matters into your own hands, I’m not sure what I can do for you.”

  “Am I going to be expelled?” Zhongmei asked. Her voice was quiet.

  “If you were the vice director of this school and a girl violated the rules like you have done, twice in two weeks, what would you do?” he asked.

  “I …” Zhongmei hesitated. A long silence filled the room. “I don’t know,” she said at last. “No, I do know. I would praise her for trying hard. I wouldn’t expel her.”

  She thought she saw the beginnings of a smile on Jia’s face, but he nonetheless said, “If one girl can break the rules, then all the girls can break the rules, and then there will be no order at all.”

  “Yes,” Zhongmei said, her head down. “I guess I’ll go back to bed.”

  “What move were you practicing just now when I came in?” Jia asked.

  “What move?” she said. “Can I show you?”

  “No, this is not the time.”

  “When can I show you, then?”

  “I don’t know, I’m quite …” Jia began before trailing off. “OK,” he resumed. “Let’s see it.”

  Zhongmei turned and went back to the barre. At first she was terribly nervous and a little bit shaky, but then she began to concentrate. She felt the movements inside of her as if the muscles of her arms and legs acted on their own. She didn’t forget that Jia was standing there, and yet she danced for herself, picking up the tempo, her movements becoming bolder, her leaps and kicks higher, her arabesques steeper, her fouettés en tournant faster; she did pirouettes in the Chinese fashion, counterclockwise, her body arching and following her raised left foot, spinning and spiraling herself into a crouch on the floor and then unfolding, coming up gradually, spinning, spinning, faster and faster, her body arched backward, one arm thrown over her head, the other trailing in front of her. She danced as if that was what she was born to do, and she knew that she was.

  At last she stopped. She looked to where she thought Jia was standing, but the room was empty, almost as if her entire encounter with him had been a dream. Zhongmei stood there with her mouth agape. Had she imagined this entire incident? She spun around thinking that perhaps Vice Director Jia was behind her, but there was only the barre, and behind the barre the mirror in which she saw herself reflected, a small skinny girl in the gray of the earliest dawn, alone and yet full of desire and hope and confusion.

  Suddenly Old Zhou appeared at the door.

  “I saw the light on,” he said. “I thought it must be you. It’s time to go back to the dormitory. Hurry!”

  Zhongmei flew down the stairs, into the courtyard, up the stairs, and into her bed just in time to hear the wake-up bell. She lay there for a minute, wishing that she could sleep, maybe have a beautiful dream in which the Beijing Dance Academy was a friendly, cozy place where she was happy. She climbed down from her upper bunk and went to her drawer to put on her sweat suit and its plastic covering for early-morning exercise. The day was starting like any other, and she didn’t know if she was now going to be expelled from the Beijing Dance Academy because of her continued bad behavior, or if she had saved herself by dancing more beautifully than any other girl Vice Director Jia had ever observed.

  26

  The Progress Prize

  The exercises done, Zhongmei went with Xiaolan for breakfast. She watched as the other girls checked their names on the rehearsal lists for that afternoon, something that Zhongmei didn’t bother to do anymore because she knew her name wouldn’t be there.

  “Zhongmei,” Xiaolan said. “You’d better look at this.”

  Zhongmei looked up at the bulletin board. There was the usual list of rehearsal teachers, a studio number, and the names of the boys and girls chosen for that rehearsal. But there was something else that Zhongmei couldn’t quite believe was really there. Her name, written in conspicuously large characters, as if the person who wrote them wanted to be sure they were seen by everybody, was there also, for the first time ever! And the name of the rehearsal teacher just above it was somebody who never taught rehearsal. It was Jia Zuoguang! And the dance she was to do: Butterfly Lovers duet!

  This was amazing. Zhongmei had been chosen by the biggest star of the Beijing Dance Academy to rehearse a duet from Butterfly Lovers! It was one of the most famous and difficult dances in the Chinese classical repertory, a drama about a girl who, in order to become a scholar, pretends to be a boy. First-year students did some simple duets, which they practiced at rehearsal, but not Butterfly Lovers, which was technically very difficult, involving all sorts of complicated lifts and acrobatic movements. And since no boy was listed on Jia Zuoguang’s rehearsal notice, it appeared as though Zhongmei’s partner would be none other than Vice Director Jia himself! Zhongmei could hear a kind of oohing and aahing around her as the other students, boys and girls, absorbed the remarkable information on the bulletin board. She heard her name whispered with surprise and the words “Butterfly Lovers” and “Jia Zuoguang” spoken with reverence. The girl nobody wanted and that everybody knew was going to be returned home at the end of the year had suddenly been chosen for something very special. What could be going on?

  Zhongmei went through the morning in a kind of trance. She hardly noticed when Teacher Zhu treated her like any other girl in fundamentals of ballet, letting her take her place at the barre and giving her the same rough treatment she meted out to everybody. Later, she attended calligraphy, math, and reading classes, barely paying attention. She had lunch standing up in the cafeteria, her leg stretched across the table in front of her, unaware of what she was eating. She didn’t sleep a wink at nap time. The time for rehearsal came and she stood at the bulletin board, because no studio had been listed for her solo with Jia. All the other students disappeared to their assignments. Zhongmei waited by herself, and just as she was beginning to wonder if this too was something she had imagined, Jia Zuoguang appeared down the corridor, a smile on his handsome face.

  “Hello, xiao mei zi,” he said. “Come with me,” and he led Zhongmei up the stairs to the third-floor studios. “Listen,” he told her. “I don’t have time to practice with you myself, but I’m going to put you in Teacher Peng Guimin’s solo class. It’s for second-year students, but I’m sure you can handle it.”

  He opened the door to a studio, and Zhongmei saw half a dozen girls and Teacher Peng.

  “Xiao Peng,” Jia said, using the diminutive for Teacher Peng. “This is Li Zhongmei. Do me a favor and take her in your class.”

  “Well, I guess I can take her for today,” Teacher Peng said.

  “No, I want you to take her for the rest of the year,” Jia said, “and prepare her for her final-day performance.”

  “But I already have a full complement,” the surprised Teacher Peng protested. “And she’s just a first-year student, I think. This class is for—”

  “Yes, I know,” Jia interrupted. “Never mind that. Please just take her. You’d be doing me an enormous favor. I’ll explain the situation to you later. Meanwhile, do your best with her. You’ll see that she’s a very hard worker and very talented. Do what you can with her, and I want to see progress by the end of the semester.”

  “Yes, of course, Zuoguang,” Teacher Peng said. Turning to Zhongmei, she said, “Take a spot there, and just follow as best you can. My schedule is full and I don’t have time to give you any extra attention, but come every day and we’ll see what you can do.”

  Zhongmei took a place in the back row, feeling out of place among all these older girls, but thrilled as well.

  “We’re doing the solo parts of the Dunhuang dance,” Teacher Peng said for Zhongmei’s benefit. “You’ve heard of Dunhuang probably?”

  Zhongmei nodded, but in truth she wasn’t sure. Anyway she understood that she wasn’t doing B
utterfly Lovers. Jia had just written that down to impress everybody else. But what was important was that he wanted her to do well at her final performance, and he was giving her a special chance to succeed.

  “One of our most famous Chinese places is called Dunhuang,” Teacher Peng explained. “It’s in Gansu Province in western China. More than a thousand years ago, Buddhist monks painted the walls of caves there. The Dunhuang dance is based on one of those paintings. It shows a goddess, called a flying apsara, who spreads the wisdom of the Buddha across the universe. Just try to follow.”

  Zhongmei did. And she did the next day as well, learning the intricate movements and poses of the flying apsaras, who were a kind of nymph flying through the air trailing long, curling gossamer ribbons. On Zhongmei’s second day of rehearsal, the girls spent the entire time on a single movement, a very hard one. The dancer stands with one arm raised over her head, the other extended in front of her, the body arched backward, one foot raised behind her while she turns smoothly through one or more complete rotations on the other.

  “The trick is to hold the position and to turn in a single, smooth, slow motion,” Teacher Peng said. “Don’t turn a little bit, then stop, then turn a bit more. You have to get enough momentum to complete the turn at the same speed all the way around, but not so much momentum that you start fast and end up slow, or go too far around so you end up with your behind facing the audience.”

  The other girls laughed at that, but Zhongmei was thinking. The same speed all the way around! One smooth uninterrupted motion! Zhongmei wondered if she could ever do that. After a while of trying, her hip and calf muscles burned with the effort, but she kept on trying.

  “Not too fast,” Teacher Peng said. “Slowly. It’s even harder when done slowly, but it’s more graceful and stately that way.”

  At the end of the class each of the girls did the movement in turn while the other girls watched. Most of them could manage at least one respectable turn, but when Zhongmei’s turn came, she failed miserably, flailing her arms to keep her balance while wobbling on her right foot as she tried to make the turn.