During intermission, Ben brought my niang and my dia backstage.
It was six years since I had set eyes on them. They wore Mao's suits buttoned all the way up to their necks, my niang in grey and my dia in dark blue. They looked so proper, so stiff. My memories of them didn't match. They looked older too, especially my niang. Her black hair had turned to grey and the many years of harsh living had obviously taken their toll. Her face was more wrinkled and now she wore a pair of black-rimmed oversized glasses.
The three of us, in tears, simply hugged each other tight. Nobody spoke for a long time. My niang took her handkerchief out and it was already soaked with tears. "Don't cry! Don't cry! It's all right now!" she kept saying.
I wanted that moment to linger on and on and on. I had longed for her comfort for so many years.
By the time I went back to my dressing-room to change for the second act, nearly all my makeup had been wiped off by my niang's handkerchief. I didn't care. I had felt my niang's adoring love and tender touch once more.
After the performance, my niang and my dia came backstage again. They watched people congratulate me and I could see the pride in my parents' eyes.
Finally, my dia, the man of few words, could contain himself no longer. "Why didn't you wear any pants?" he said. He had never seen anyone wearing tights before.
Ben and some of my other friends had wanted to arrange a big party in honour of my parents that night but I wanted to spend that first night alone with them, in my own house.
My parents felt on top of the world as we drove back to my own place, in my own car. They couldn't believe their eyes when they saw where I lived.
"Is this your house?" my niang asked in utter disbelief.
I nodded.
"This is a palace!" my dia gasped.
I cooked a couple of my niang's favourite recipes for dinner that night, and afterwards we sat around the dining table with a pot of their favourite jasmine tea. We talked and talked. Sadly, I discovered that my niang had developed diabetes and a weak heart condition. Her incredible eyesight had also deserted her. My dia, however, was still as strong as an ox, despite being hard of hearing.
So many years of missed events to catch up on, so many beloved memories. I wanted to know it all, everything about each one of my brothers, their families, their lives. All my brothers except Jing Tring were married by now. I was an uncle: I had nieces and a nephew. My parents told me Deng Xiaoping had done wonders for the Chinese economy. "If it weren't for Deng
Xiaoping's open-door policy, our lives would still be in ruins," my niang said. She told me how their living standards had improved, how my brothers were each allowed to buy a small piece of land, cheaply, from the commune, to build their own houses on.
My parents told me how scared they had been when someone in the commune had heard about my defection. They'd heard it on the Voice of America on a short-wave radio. China has really changed, I thought. No one had a radio, let alone a short-wave one, in the village when I grew up, not even while I was in Beijing.
The people in our village had told my parents that I had turned my back on China. Some officials had paid a special visit to my family two days after my defection. My dia had been at work that day. "Do you know what your son has done?" an official howled at my niang. "Your son has defected from his motherland for the filthy America! You, as his mother, should be ashamed, bringing up such a bastard!"
But the officials had underestimated my niang. "How could you blame me?" she replied angrily. "You, the government, took my innocent son away! From the age of eleven you were responsible for his upbringing! Now, you are asking me what have I done? You have lost my son. You are responsible!"
The officials were speechless. "You will hear from us again," was all they said.
My parents had lived in constant fear and despair ever since then. They had been prepared to go to prison and lose everything they had to defend my honour. Some of my relatives and friends had distanced themselves from my family, for fear of being implicated in my defection, but the officials never contacted my family again.
"Your niang developed nightmares after your defection," my dia added. "If there were any loud noises at night, she would be terrified. For many nights she sobbed and sobbed."
"My heart would have bled to death if it weren't for my desire to see you again!" my niang cried. "So many times I prayed to see you one more time. Now I can finally close my eyes and die in peace. My dream has come true! I am the happiest person on earth!"
"Dia, what about you?" I asked.
"I had to be strong," he said. "But I was scared of losing one of my sons, a son we are proud of!"
This was the first time he'd ever actually said he was proud of me. I knew it wasn't easy for him to say and my heart was light and happy.
"Your dia lost so much weight during that time!" my niang continued. "His face was as long as his own shadow. Only sadness and agony. He spoke even less. Can you imagine your dia speaking less than usual! He let more noise out from his bottom end than from his top!" she laughed.
My niang then told me of a dream she'd had, one that kept recurring for years and years. Just before I'd been accepted by the Beijing Dance Academy, in late 1971, she'd dreamt of a huge crowd, gathered in a cloud-like mist. Through the mist she could see many gorgeous dancers, like goddesses, dancing in the sky. Rainbows were their costumes and the shining stars were the light. She told me that her dream had come true tonight, watching me dance. She had flown by airplane up to the ninth heaven. She'd seen the goddess-like dancing of the Houston Ballet. Her heart had been filled with pride and happiness. Now she could die in peace.
"What you did on stage looked very difficult," my dia said. "I was dizzy just watching you spin! I couldn't believe you were still standing afterwards."
We talked and talked. So many questions, questions that had been stored in our hearts for so many years. "How many times your dia and I questioned ourselves," my niang confessed. "Did we do the right thing, letting you go to Beijing at such a young age? I cried for days after your first letter. For days and days. When you said you had to wash your own clothes, I thought, what have I done?! Why did I encourage you to go? You were only eleven! We grieved for years. I knew you were homesick. I knew you tried hard to hide it. And I knew you would be even more homesick if we told you how we felt."
I began to tell them then how devastating my homesickness had been in those first two dreadful years at the Beijing Dance Academy. How hopeless I'd felt about my dancing. How afraid I was of being sent back home and bringing shame to the Li family. How I'd hidden in the weeping willow trees. And how, many times, I had clutched onto my niang's quilt and sobbed myself to sleep.
"How did you recover from this?" my dia asked.
"Remember the pen you gave me?"
My dia laughed. "That was the only way I knew how to encourage you to study hard, to reach your potential. I'm sorry if I hurt your pride."
"No, I'm grateful. Grateful for what you have done for me. I only wish I still had that pen. I lost it, on tour, during my first year with the Houston Ballet. I loved that pen."
"Do you still have the quilt I made you?" my niang asked.
"After my defection the academy officials burnt it along with all my other belongings."
My niang just sighed, but there was enormous sadness in that one short sound.
I told them many things that night. I told them about my marriage to Elizabeth. I told them about Ben and what happened the night of my defection, and their jaws dropped with shock. They spoke not a single word until I had finished my story.