Because of the injury Ben had to modify my classical solo for the second round. It was so simplified that the judges must have thought I was deliberately avoiding the difficult steps. However, for my contemporary solo, I had never received so many curtain calls in my entire dance career. But then the Russian judges complained that this ballet was politically motivated. It was anti-communist, they said. Ben and I were astounded.
By the time I finished the second round I was having trouble even getting up from my bed in the mornings. The pain had started to travel down my legs and the heavy-duty painkillers I was taking did nothing but make me drowsy and my muscles numb. I challenged myself to finish, despite my injuries, but decided this was going to be my last ballet competition. I'd had enough of the politics and dramas and, although the medals gave me some international recognition, they would never make me a better dancer or a better human being.
There were other things to worry about during that competition too. Disturbing things. During the course of that week both Ben's room and my room were trashed. Some of Ben's belongings went missing and my alarm clock had been smashed to pieces. I remember feeling uncomfortable, unsafe. It was as though we were being watched.
Then, just as the competition ended, the Russian authorities asked to check the entry visa in my passport. They said there might be problems. The US delegation said they thought it would be safer for me to go with them to Leningrad and leave Russia from there rather than from Moscow.
I was happy to go home via Leningrad. Leningrad was where the Kirov Ballet and the Vaganova Ballet School were based, so I would have the opportunity of visiting the Mariinsky Theatre where the Kirov Ballet performed and of visiting the Vaganova Ballet School. I remember watching the Kirov Ballet perform Sleeping Beauty and I remember paying homage to the inventor of my ballet training method, the great Vaganova Ballet School. I was eternally grateful for that wonderful training.
In the end I received a bronze medal from that Moscow competition. The judges normally sign all the certificates before they are handed out, but when I received my competition certificate it was unsigned. I could not help but think about the Russians and their hatred of defectors and I knew that, in their eyes, I was no different.
By the time I left Russia my back had completely seized up and the pain was increasing. But as soon as I returned to Houston two things happened. Janie Parker and I went to Chile to perform in a gala, which was already scheduled, even though my back was getting worse by the day. And Mary McKendry from the London Festival Ballet came to join the Houston Ballet as a principal dancer.
"Jeano, is it true that Mary McKendry is coming?" I asked our general manager eagerly.
"Yes, a real coup," he replied, beaming. "Make sure you treat her well. We can't afford to lose her."
After Janie and I returned from Chile I met Mary again in class the following morning. She and I immediately started to rehearse the leading roles in Sleeping Beauty. It had been eighteen months since I'd met her in London. I was so happy that Ben had paired us together. But I wasn't sure whether my back would hold up.
I didn't know what to make of Mary at first. She struck me as brutally honest in her opinions-and in her dancing. She was a perfectionist, like I was.
One movement we had to rehearse in that first week was a sequence of three "fish dives", where Mary had to do a double turn on one pointe and then I would pick her up by her waist and she would dive forwards and finish with her face inches away from the floor, both of her legs high in the air. It was one of my favourite movements to practise and perform.
My back pain, however, prevented me from rehearsing this with Mary. She urged me to see a doctor. But I didn't want to: I didn't want to lose my first opportunity to dance with her. So we continued to work together for another week but by then the pain was excruciating and after a CT scan the doctors informed me that I had two, possibly three, herniated disks in my lower back.
The doctors immediately ordered me to stop dancing. Bed rest only, for as long as it took my injury to heal. Otherwise, they said, I might have to have surgery, with less than a fifty per cent success rate.
I was devastated. I had lost my first opportunity to work with Mary, and frighteningly, I faced the possibility of never being able to dance again.
That night I lay in my bed and thought of all that this might mean to my life. Ballet was all I knew, all I had known since the age of eleven. It was my passion, my identity. How could I, once again, be left on my own with an unknown future? Now I was the soaring bird suddenly shot down. I was a caged tiger once more. My frustration and despair were enormous.
I knew the only way for me to recover was to be as disciplined and dedicated with my rehabilitation as I had been with my dancing. So I taught myself to meditate. I taught myself to control my frustration and pain. I had no choice but to overcome it.
I wouldn't let my insecurity overwhelm me but during this time I missed my niang dreadfully. I didn't want my parents to worry about me, so I didn't tell them about my injury. Instead I asked them to apply for visas and come to America for a second time.
Mary visited me during that period, even though she didn't really know me very well. It was then that she asked me if I had books to read. She loved reading and was appalled when I said I read very little. I told her about my reading experience with Black Beauty.
"Read something shorter and easier to start with! Don't worry about what each word means exactly. It's hard even for Western people to understand every word. English is a difficult language. Just try to get the story, even if you have to guess to start with. You'll get so much pleasure out of reading, I promise!"
So for nearly three months, friends and fans brought me food, videotapes-and books. I took Mary's advice. I just started to read short things: newspaper articles and short storybooks. Then I tried longer books: Romeo and Juliet was one of my favourites. I even attempted The Hobbit, though I found the language in both these books hard to comprehend. But still I found it fascinating, and I especially loved Tolkien's extraordinary characters.
So Mary introduced me to literature and once I started reading I couldn't stop, couldn't believe the stories I had been missing out on. I worked hard at keeping my mental focus over those three months as I was lying on my bed. I had a secret plan-the Houston Ballet was going to perform in New York City in October. That was less than four months away. Ben and my doctors doubted I would make it back by then. But I never lost hope. I had acupuncture treatments, homeopathy, Chinese herbal medicines, and a wonderful masseur who Mary called "Mad Charles" and who worked with me constantly. He kept telling me that I would make it back to the stage, but the strengthening program seemed slow and painful and many times I had my doubts.
Eventually, however, my injuries gradually started to mend. The disk herniation never went away completely but the strengthening program helped me build stronger abdominal and back muscles to support it and I had to do continual exercises to keep the injury in check.
But finally I had made it back to the stage.
27 Mary
Mary and I were back dancing together again and we quickly became good friends. We trusted each other's tastes in dancing and each other's opinions in other aspects of life too.