A Girl Named Faithful Plum (18 page)

T
he sun was already bright and streaming through the high windows of studio two the next day as Zhongmei and the other girls, having gotten through the sweaty, agonizing ordeal of the morning run and calisthenics, filed in for fundamentals of ballet. Even Chairman Mao, looking down on the scene from his honored place on the wall, seemed to be smiling.

“Good morning, good morning,” Teacher Zhu said as each girl came into the room, and each girl in turn recited a respectful, “Good morning, Teacher Zhu.”

“Everyone to the barre!” Teacher Zhu commanded, and the girls scurried for places along the wall. Zhongmei scurried for a place, noticing as she reached the barre that there was a piano in the studio and the same accompanist she had seen at the audition.

“That’s fine,” Teacher Zhu said, and she walked slowly along the line of girls, looking at each one. But when she came
to Zhongmei, who was near the end of the line, she said, “You, come with me,” and walked to a corner on the other side of the studio from the piano.

“You sit here,” she said, and she pointed to a spot on the bare wooden floor.

Zhongmei looked at her uncertainly.

“You sit down here for now,” Teacher Zhu said, and she pointed again to the floor.

Not understanding, and thinking that Teacher Zhu was going to tell all of the girls to take a place on the floor, Zhongmei settled down on the cool, hard wood. She watched as Teacher Zhu walked to the middle of the studio, faced the other girls, and said, “Everybody, listen carefully. Face the barre in
ding zi bu
”—basic position—“one foot straight, the other foot pointing at the first with the heel, like a
ding-zi
”—a nail. She walked down the row of girls, adjusting a foot position here, pushing in a bottom or lifting a chin there.

“The Beijing Dance Academy trains professional dancers, not amateurs, so the first thing you have to do is forget everything you’ve learned until now, because what you’ve learned until now was full of mistakes,” Teacher Zhu said. “We stress Russian ballet here, but we add in many elements from Chinese classical dance. In my day I was the best ballerina in China. I studied in Moscow. I danced with the Bolshoi Ballet there. But when I came back to China, I blended what I learned with the best elements of our own tradition. There is a reason why I am your teacher in the fundamentals of ballet class.

“Now, face the barre and hold it lightly with both hands—chin
up, shoulders down,
pi-gu
”—behind—“in, not sticking out, but in a vertical line with the back of your feet. All the weight on your heels, which should feel like they’re dug into the ground so that if you got hit by a car and your legs are sliced in half, your heels would still be planted there like fence posts.”

Again, while Zhongmei watched from her spot on the floor, Teacher Zhu surveyed the line of girls. “OK, not great, but not disastrously bad either.” She nodded at the accompanist, who began to play. “Everyone plié,” she said, speaking over the music, “like this.” She demonstrated a perfect half plié, and then watched as eleven of the twelve girls followed suit. “Back straight,
pi-gu
straight down, not pushed back—that’s very important if you want to look like dancers rather than clowns.” She curtsied, straightened, and then bent her knees, holding her back straight in the classic position.

“That’s it. Curtsy, on pointe, demi-plié, and, again, on pointe.
Bu tsuo
,” Teacher Zhu said—not bad.

Zhongmei looked on in amazement. Was she to sit there while all the other girls were given the ballet class? Was her punishment for her gaffe of the previous day continuing? She sat and waited, hoping that Teacher Zhu would still summon her to the barre maybe for the second half of the class. This must be some mistake, Zhongmei said to herself. She can’t want me just to sit here.

The class proceeded. Teacher Zhu went over the eight directions of the body, the five positions of the feet. The girls now alternated between demi-pliés and full pliés; they practiced what American ballet girls learn as battements tendus, because in the United States we use the French terms for the
various ballet steps and movements, though in China these terms have been translated into Chinese. While the other girls did their first arabesques and jetés, Zhongmei sat on the floor in a corner of the room, listening to the music and watching in mystified sadness, the tears welling up in her eyes.