Li Cunxin - Mao's Last Dancer

I was sad to discover that Elizabeth 's parents were divorced. Elizabeth had grown up in a comfortable, middle-class family. Her father had a small printing business and her mother was a receptionist at the West Palm Beach Ballet School. It was worlds apart from the kind of life I had known.

But although I had Elizabeth 's love, my job with the Houston Ballet and my precious freedom, I couldn't shake off a nagging dark shadow across my heart. I began to have nightmares. My family and I were being shot against a wall, just like the people from my commune back home. I would shout violently and wake up sweating and find Elizabeth leaning over me saying, "It's all right. It's all right."

I feared for my family and friends back in China. I feared the worst. I hated myself for putting my loved ones in danger. The pain to even imagine that I would never see them again! Everywhere I was reminded of my family. The good food that I ate every day in America would remind me of my family's struggle for survival. Seeing Elizabeth 's mother reminded me of my niang. Tears would flood my eyes. Seeing children playing in the parks would remind me of my own childhood and all the games I used to play with my friends and brothers. And when the rain came, I thought of my family and wondered if they still rushed around to collect the flakes of dried yams from the rooftops before they got wet. I was homesick and guilt-stricken and, without me realising it, Elizabeth became the victim of my emotional suffering. My only escape was to dance.

Throughout this time I made enormous progress with my dancing and Elizabeth worked hard as a scholarship student. But Ben never considered her a top prospect and she gradually became disillusioned. She was convinced Ben didn't like her because she had married me. She was torn between her own dance career and mine.

I felt so very sorry. Elizabeth was such a courageous girl. She was strong-minded and gregarious. We saw ourselves as Romeo and Juliet but we were convinced our story would have a happy ending. Yet no matter how hard we tried, life's intricacies always seemed to make our relationship worse. We avoided talking about the problem. We were afraid of hurting each other. I was still struggling to understand American culture, selfishly immersed in my own dancing world, arguing over unimportant things like unpaid bills and unwashed dishes.

One day, after a hard day's rehearsal, I walked into a dark apartment. "Hello, Liz?" I called out. No answer. She must be out, I thought. I turned on the lights-the dishes were still piled up in the sink after breakfast as usual. Anger started to simmer inside me. I looked to see if she had left me any messages and I found none. I took a beer from the fridge and sat on a cheap folding chair and felt sorry for myself. Where is my wife? Where is my dinner? Why didn't she leave me a message? Why didn't she wash the dishes, with all the time she has during the day? Hunger made me feel angrier. I broke a couple of eggs into a bowl and was about to make fried rice when I noticed the rice was still sitting in a pot on the stove. I'd told Elizabeth to put it in the fridge so it would keep longer. Should I wait for her perhaps? Yes, of course. According to my family tradition, the family meal together was a sacred time. I should keep this tradition going.

I waited for over an hour. I started to worry. Maybe she'd had an accident. I picked up the phone and called Keith, the British boy who'd stayed at Ben's place and who was a close friend of Elizabeth 's at the time. No answer. Please don't let anything happen to Liz, I prayed. I paced around our apartment with my heart hanging in the air.

Elizabeth eventually came home, in a happy mood, around nine o'clock. "Hello, my darling, have you had your dinner yet?" she said.

My anger flared up immediately. "Where you been?"

"I went out with some friends and we had something to eat together. Why are you so angry?" she asked.

"Why I am angry? Look at these, dirty dishes in sink, like pigs' home, rice out on stove. No dinner, no message. I'm worried, hungry and angry!"

"Oh, you want me to cook for you? Is that what you're angry about? Let me tell you, you didn't marry a cook! I hate cooking!"

"I work all day and come home, see dirt everywhere! You want me cook, clean, wash at seven o'clock? You have many more hours free, what you do?"

"You don't understand, do you? I want to dance, not cook! Dancing is something I've wanted to do since I was a little girl. It's the only thing I want to do. Your career is going from strength to strength and you are happy with your leading roles. You go to sleep with sweet dreams. What about me?" she said, and by now she was in tears.

In my anger I could see nothing of my own selfishness. Sweet dreams? Had she forgotten my nightmares so quickly? She had no idea what I was going through. "In night, I think of my family in China…" but I couldn't go on. How could I express all my sorrow and guilt? "You don't understand!" I said finally.

"We don't understand each other!" she shouted.

We were still fuming the next morning. I'd gone out the evening before to walk off my anger and Elizabeth had been asleep when I'd returned. My anger gradually gave in to remorse but we didn't speak for days.

That was the beginning of the end of our marriage. I wanted Elizabeth and Ben to get along. I hoped that he might accept her into the company. But eventually it was too agonising for her to socialise with Ben and she was convinced that as long as he was the artistic director of the Houston Ballet she would have no chance of getting a contract. I tried to teach her some of my techniques but with our close relationship and my poor English, our coaching sessions always ended in frustration. Our happiest moments were when we would dance together in our living room. I wished that I could give her this kind of happiness all the time, but I could see she was suffocating and I didn't know how to help. I encouraged her to continue her dancing career with other companies, but she thought I was pushing her away. She eventually tried the San Francisco Ballet and several other companies but no contracts were offered. She came back to Houston between tries and over the months we communicated with each other less and less.

About a year after we married, she was finally accepted as a dancer by a small contemporary dance company in Oklahoma. She immediately started work. She was excited at last. She loved her new dancing opportunities. She loved performing. She was happy and alive.

Then one evening she phoned me from Oklahoma. "Li, I want a divorce."

I was shocked but not totally surprised. "If this is what you want, okay," I murmured sadly.

"I'll be back to get my stuff soon," she said shakily. "I'm sorry, Li, I really loved you."

I didn't blame Elizabeth for our failed marriage. I blamed myself. I had let Elizabeth down. I had failed as a husband. I didn't understand love in Western culture and I shrank back into my own protective cocoon, withdrawing from many of my friends. I felt hopeless. I doubted that a marriage between East and West could ever work. Hadn't Consul Zhang told me this, that night at the consulate? What could I have done to have saved our marriage? We loved each other. We had each other, and now we had lost each other. I blamed fate. Fate had pulled a dirty trick on me. I thought of my parents' successful marriage and felt only more grief and shame.

Now there was no way back. I had no home to go to now, so I poured myself into my dance even more. Ballet was the only thing

I knew how to do. It was my salvation as I tried to survive on my own in the Western world.

After our divorce, to help me pay my rent, I shared an apartment with another student for that first year. The second year I moved into a one-bedroom unit and I finally had my own space.