While petty disagreements, jealousies and irritations were not uncommon in all my years with the company; we were a family with one aim and one heart. We did not doubt each other. We appreciated each other’s strengths and shortcomings. We spoke freely amongst ourselves. But by the time I am speaking of, that had changed. Those not completely in accord with Comrade Chen’s thinking had to be very careful in how they spoke or acted. Otherwise they would be reported by one of the comrade’s converts for falling back into negative reactionary ways. And amongst those of us who were uncertain, we all felt very differently and so even in such a gathering, each became cautious. So in our late night whisperings, while we shared misgivings and anxieties, none of us dared to say what she truly felt in her heart. For myself, for the first time in my entire life, I became aware that I had a personal opinion distinct from that of anyone else. But what I came to think was that, just as in the winter dance cycle, we were in a period when the gods had withdrawn and men sought to control their own destinies. Painful as this might be, there was no more point in regretting it than in pining over a change of season. What others thought, I don’t know, but half a dozen of the older performers managed to slip away at that time.
It was about then that Comrade Chen made her own selections from the old dance cycles and began to teach us two new pieces. From the old, she chose scenes in which brave heroes went to war with evil kings, landlords forced lovers to part, demons enslaved people, that sort of thing. The new pieces she introduced were modelled on Chinese dances: in one a young girl sacrificed her life to rally a beleaguered revolutionary battalion, and in the other a young schoolteacher encouraged peasants to resist the demands of a greedy and lecherous tax collector. The Comrade was quite ingenious in adapting our modes of expression to these dances. I suppose it all would have made a reasonable impression, but for me it was weirdly spiritless.
I was always aware that a gesture that had a specific traditional meaning, like an elongation of the arm, hand and finger, which invoked the inner harmony of the earth, was now being used merely to tell the evil landlord to depart. In this way, the language of our dance was used in, what was for us, a nonsensical way. There was no particular quality that one felt from doing such a performance beyond the athletic. I thought to myself: this is what it is like to do any ordinary kind of work.
But before we could ever put these pieces on in public, the company was changed in a manner that none of us, or certainly I, could ever have imagined. Though afterwards we put on dances, the company really ended at that time. Comrade Chen broke in on our afternoon rehearsal one day and called us all to a meeting in the main hall. She was dishevelled and evidently quite upset. She began by saying that the people’s liberation was always difficult and that one must always be prepared to make sacrifices. In our own country, the will of the people was, despite heroic efforts by the people’s government, still meeting with opposition from reactionary and deviant groups. This meant that more money had to be allocated to military purposes than had first been anticipated. Spending on other revolutionary activities was going to have to be temporarily reduced.
Here Comrade Chen stopped involuntarily and had to force herself to continue. Funding for the dance collective was to be cut back: we were to be paid, like all other workers for performances and rehearsals, but our room and board could no longer be subsidized. Then she looked at us with genuine concern. She saw that it was too large a change for many of us to assimilate. In as kind a voice as she had, she explained we would have to move back in with our parents. For those of us whose parents were dead or could not be located, we should, if we were of marriageable age, find a husband, preferably a devoted servant of the revolution. Since the government recognised, even if it could not approve, that our way of life had been virtually monastic, a series of social gatherings would be arranged so that we might choose a mate. This would take place over the next month, and at the end of that time, we would have to make our own arrangements. Of course, all of us cried and cried and cried. Even our determined Comrade finally stopped trying to comfort us.
Five days later, the first of these social gatherings took place. Comrade Chen understood that few of us had any idea of how to behave under such circumstances. She worked hard to make introductions and begin conversations between us dedicated virgins and the soldiers, who were mostly junior officers and who were almost as intimidated as we. For me, since I no longer had any idea where to find my parents and brother, it was a matter of some urgency that I succeed. But I was overcome with inertia and sadness. I could barely manage minimal greetings. Over the next few weeks, many of the girls seemed to begin to match up with some of the more dashing, young and handsome officers. I think that Comrade Chen must almost have given up on me, but she persisted. She made it a personal project to take me around to the newcomers and praise me to them. No amount of smiling, however, could overcome my listless sorrow.
One evening, I found myself at one of these painful gatherings sitting off to the side as usual. And, as it happened, I was sitting next to a soldier, older, stockier, more peasant-like than the rest. His left arm had been amputated above the elbow, and I suppose fairly recently for he was having some difficulty lighting his cigarette. I helped him and was relieved when it looked like he wasn’t going to try to talk to me. Suddenly he changed his mind. Hesitantly he began asking about my childhood, my upbringing, and so forth.
It was easy enough to tell him about all that, and then he told me about his own family. He was, as he looked, a farmer’s child, but he had been educated at a French missionary school.
“You know how to read?” I asked him.
“Oh yes.” I was surprised, but no more than he when he found out I had only just begun to learn. He said he had no idea about the life of a dancer. He had only seen the dance once a very long time ago. I told him about my training. He seemed to find it interesting.
He was easy to talk to, and he seemed to enjoy talking to me also. At the following social gatherings, our friendship continued, and he asked me out to dinner a few times. Under more ordinary circumstances, we might have remained acquaintances but, since the situation was what it was, we got married. Comrade Chen was very pleased.
