A Girl Named Faithful Plum (31 page)

Even Teacher Zhu, despite Zhongmei’s demonstration of refinement, kept trying to find ways to keep her from taking the second year of fundamentals of ballet.

“Oh, you don’t look good,” she would frequently say as Zhongmei walked into the studio. “Why don’t you go down
to see the nurse, rest a bit. I think you’re coming down with something.”

“But I feel fine,” Zhongmei would reply, wondering why this person continued to persecute her.

“Go down to the nurse,” Teacher Zhu would order.

“You again!” the nurse would declare. “There’s nothing wrong with you.” Finally she sent Zhongmei back to Teacher Zhu with a note: “Zhongmei is perfectly healthy. Please do not send her to me again.”

And then there was the time when she was a fourteen-year-old fourth-year student and her partner didn’t catch her correctly as she landed after a difficult leap. She fell on the side of her ankle, heard a cracking sound, and then passed out from the pain. For the second time in her life she woke up in a hospital, and the doctor told her she had broken several bones in her foot.

“You’ll be able to walk,” the doctor said, “but probably with a limp.”

“Will I be able to dance?” Zhongmei asked, not quite realizing the gravity of her situation.

“Dance?” the doctor said. He hesitated. He was a kind man.

“We’ll have to see.”

Zhongmei gritted her teeth through the pain of six months of physical therapy before she was able to go into a dance studio again, but she did heal, she did dance again, and she graduated on time. The girl who defeated Teacher Zhu wasn’t going to let broken bones stop her.

When it came time to graduate in 1984, Zhongmei was
widely deemed to be the best dancer in her class. A competition was held in one of Beijing’s biggest theaters, with China’s Minister of Culture in attendance. All the girls took part. Zhongmei won it. In fact, she won every major dance competition she entered for the next four years in a row.

But none of this success ever went to her head. Zhongmei remained modest and unassuming. She never forgot who she was or where she came from. She was always ready to help younger dance students, and whenever she happened to meet one from the countryside, especially one who doubted her ability to succeed in the midst of all the sophisticated big-city girls at the school, Zhongmei would tell her that nothing is impossible, if only you work hard and you believe in yourself.

At her graduation ceremony at the Beijing Dance Academy, Zhongmei was asked to make a speech. This is what she said:

Zhongmei stopped for a moment, fighting with her emotion.

Zhongmei looked at her audience. All eyes were on her, Vice Director Jia’s, Comrade Tsang’s, Teacher Zhu’s, and Teacher Peng’s, and those of all the girls who had come to the Dance Academy when they were eleven years old. Xiaolan was there, and Zhongmei looked straight into her eyes and smiled.

“So, that’s it,” Zhongmei said. “My speech is finished. In the end, it all worked out. I am happy. Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you from my heart.”

Zhongmei sat down. Her teachers and her fellow students applauded warmly. The ceremony continued with the granting of diplomas. When Zhongmei’s turn came, she got her diploma and a red badge naming her the top graduate of the Beijing Dance Academy, class of 1984.

When she got to her seat, she looked at it, just a piece of baked clay with some Chinese characters stamped on it. And yet it meant everything to her. It meant that in the end it had all been worth it—the hunger strike, those terrible train rides, the four-o’clock mornings in studio two, the days spent on the floor in fundamentals of ballet, all those Sundays when she didn’t go with the other girls for ice sticks in Tiananmen Square. Zhongmei clutched her red badge and fought back tears. It meant that she had nothing to regret, that if she could turn back the clock to that day in Baoquanling when her sister first mentioned the auditions in Beijing, she would grit her teeth, summon up her courage, and dare to do it all over again.

I
want to thank my sister, Judy Peritz, for suggesting the idea for this book—as well as for being a great sister over the years. Sincere thanks too to the editors at Alfred A. Knopf Books for Young Readers, especially Nancy Hinkel, whose numerous suggestions, ideas, and devoted attention went way beyond the call of duty. I am listed as the author of this book, but Nancy played such a big role in it that I feel it’s unfair her name isn’t also on the title page. Jon Segal, my brilliant as usual editor at Knopf, introduced me to Nancy, and I thank him for that. My agent, Kathy Robbins, was by my side as always with her indispensable counsel, both practical and creative. And, of course, there’s Zhongmei herself, the Faithful Plum of the title whose story I tell and who, along with our son, Elias, to whom this book is dedicated, is at the center not just of this true tale of adversity and triumph, but of my life. To her I owe more than mere words can express.

G
rowing up in the small town of East Haddam, Connecticut, Richard Bernstein always dreamed of seeing the world, and after he finished university, he figured a great way to do that would be to become a newspaper reporter. So he became a foreign correspondent for
Time
magazine and then the
New York Times
, which sent him (all expenses paid!) to lots of countries, including Hong Kong, China, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, France, Germany, Poland, South Africa, Mozambique, and about twenty others. Along the way, he wrote thousands of newspaper articles and seven books, mostly for grown-ups.
Faithful Plum
is his first book for young readers, but he’s sure it won’t be his last. After moving around for most of his life, Richard settled in Brooklyn, New York, where he lives with his wife, Zhongmei (who
is
Faithful Plum!), their son, Elias, and their cat, Lucky.