A Girl Named Faithful Plum (28 page)

That night, Zhongmei went across the courtyard to Tsang’s office and knocked on the door. “Come in,” she heard Comrade Tsang say, and so nervous she was short of breath, she pushed open the door. Tsang was sitting with her back to the office entrance, and as Zhongmei stood behind her, she noted how thick her neck was and how severely her hair was cut.

Zhongmei cleared her throat to announce her presence. Comrade Tsang turned around and did something that Zhongmei had never seen her do before. She smiled.

“I’ve come to say I’m sorry for breaking the rules,” Zhongmei started, encouraged by the look on Comrade Tsang’s face. She had practiced what she was going to say as if it were a performance that she was going to do in front of an audience.

“I know it was wrong of me,” she said. “I ask you to forgive me for my bad behavior. I’ve learned my lesson and I’ll never do anything like that again.”

Comrade Tsang looked at her, and Zhongmei felt she saw a softening in her eyes.

“You know,” Comrade Tsang said. “It’s not easy to be in charge of almost one hundred and fifty students. That’s how many we have here, counting all the grades. Rules are for a purpose. We have to maintain order, so everybody can do their work, and maintaining order happens to be my job.”

She fell silent as if waiting for Zhongmei to agree.

“Yes,” Zhongmei said. “It’s a very important responsibility.”

“But there’s also room for understanding and for kindness,” Comrade Tsang said, “and I’m sorry I didn’t show you any of that on the night in question. That was my mistake.”

Zhongmei looked down, glad, but not knowing what to say.

“You don’t know what to say,” Comrade Tsang said. “That’s all right. I wouldn’t know quite what to say either if I were in your shoes. Let’s leave it at that. Thank you for coming. Let’s consider this matter settled.”

Comrade Tsang smiled again, and then, a bit awkwardly, she turned back to her desk. Zhongmei backed out of her office and into the courtyard outside, feeling as if a great burden had been lifted from her shoulders. She had done it. She had apologized. And Comrade Tsang had even apologized to her! She was human after all!

The next morning very early, Zhongmei got up by herself, without Old Zhou pulling on the string outside her window. After her absence of two weeks, she hadn’t told him to start waking her up again. She didn’t even know what time it was, only that she had been sleeping for quite a while, that it was still pitch dark, and that she had to resume her secret practice sessions. She climbed stealthily down from her upper bunk, got dressed, pulled on her ballet slippers, and stole across the courtyard to studio two.

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 in 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.