EVELYN AND NATHAN -Love and Justice Beyond the Snowy Mountains

As the sun rose behind the ice-covered peaks, Evelyn March walked along the village’s only dirt road. She had switched the old suitcase from one hand to the other several times. As the summer sun climbed, her palms had grown sweaty, and the light jacket draped over her shoulder made changing her grip on the handle difficult. She stopped after climbing the final slope. She set the suitcase down and waited to catch her breath.

Qiuyan was a small village between two mountains, in a country far from England. The slopes rising behind the stone houses blocked much of the sky. The road approaching the edge of the valley narrowed as it entered the houses. Evelyn looked up at the peaks opposite the direction she had come from. She had reached the village, but from here she could not see what lay beyond the mountains.

She turned at the sound of clashing swords.

Villagers were practicing in the clearing between the stone houses. Evelyn picked up her suitcase again and took a few steps forward. As one sword rose, the person facing it stepped aside. Then both returned to their starting positions. The same movement was repeated. They were in no hurry. Evelyn watched their feet for a while; she realized that those small steps came first, determining the path of the swords.

One of the people practicing turned when he saw her. The others looked at the foreign woman too. The jacket over Evelyn’s arm, her suitcase, and the weariness on her face made it clear she did not belong to the village. No one approached her. When the swords began moving again, Evelyn stepped to the side of the road.

She was thirty-four. Born in England, she had studied history. She owned an art gallery there. Before coming, she had left its management to someone she had worked with for years and trusted. She was single. She was tired of the way people’s faces changed depending on whom they faced, their calculations of self-interest, and the disrespect they disguised as familiarity. At the gallery, she had often encountered people who carried their wealth as an entitlement that opened every door. A wealthy person’s interest in her now stirred suspicion first. In coming to Qiuyan, she had wanted to get away from people and the world she knew.

She tightened her grip on the suitcase handle. She did not want to turn back under the villagers’ gaze. She had come a long way. Nor did she intend to leave before getting to know the small settlement before her.

The old man standing across the clearing stopped watching the practice and turned toward her.

Evelyn first saw Master Bai Shen that morning.

Nothing in the old man’s stance invited her over. Evelyn still took her suitcase and walked to the edge of the clearing. The swords continued to ring as she stood before Bai Shen. The master looked first at her face, then at her hands, reddened from gripping the suitcase handle. Evelyn lowered the suitcase to the ground.

She did not say the words she had prepared to explain herself. Bai Shen did not immediately ask for an explanation either. After a while, he turned back to the people practicing. Evelyn stayed beside them.

During her first mornings in the village, the sound of swords woke Evelyn.

At first, she could not distinguish one sound from another. The movements she saw through her window looked alike too. The same lift, the same turn, the same retreat. But as she went down to the clearing and watched the practice up close, she began noticing something different in every repetition. A foot set too wide, a shoulder turning early, weight left behind: each changed the other person’s movement.

Bai Shen began her training with her feet, before the sword in her hand.

Evelyn stood where the master showed her and shifted her weight from one foot to the other. In her first attempts, she moved her upper body too much and tensed her shoulders to regain her balance. When Bai Shen performed the same movement in front of her, she could see the difference. When her own turn came, however, she could not make her body do what she thought she understood.

The master stood beside her feet.

“Again,” Bai Shen said.

Evelyn settled into position again. She loosened her knees and kept her heels planted. This time, she turned more slowly.

Bai Shen’s gaze moved from her feet to her shoulders.

“Again,” Bai Shen said.

Evelyn repeated the movement.

When the training ended, her legs were more tired than her arms. As she stood at the edge of the clearing catching her breath, the other villagers continued practicing. One of them performed the turn she struggled with in a single uninterrupted motion. Evelyn watched closely. Then she tried the same movement once more without a sword.

The villagers still found her unfamiliar. She noticed conversations briefly stopping as she walked among them. She did not respond by trying to win their acceptance. She came to the training ground in the mornings and worked where she was shown. When she completed a movement, she turned toward Bai Shen; when the master asked her to repeat it, she returned to her place.

In her years as a historian, she had learned to work patiently. Here, she had to use her patience differently. Understanding a movement did not mean she could perform it correctly. When she lost her balance, words explaining it were no use. She had to take her position again and try again.

One night, she and Bai Shen remained in the clearing.

The lights in most of the houses were out. The moon rose above the stone walls, revealing small hollows in the ground. Evelyn raised her sword. She tried to complete the movement she had practiced all day, this time in less light. As her wrist turned, she realized she was gripping the hilt too tightly. She loosened her fingers.

Bai Shen stood opposite her.

Evelyn finished the movement and lowered the sword. When she saw the master looking at her, she waited.

“You came not only to survive, but to be born again,” Bai Shen said.

Without answering, Evelyn looked at the tip of her sword. There had been moments when she spoke about her past since coming to the village, but she had not told him everything that had brought her here. Bai Shen had not pressed her to tell him either.

She raised her sword again.

This time, she did not stop after the first movement. She pivoted her foot, shifted her weight forward, and completed the turn. Instead of following the blade with her eyes, she tried to feel its weight in her hand. Her shoulder was tense again at the end of the movement. She released her breath and returned to her starting position.

Bai Shen came closer and examined her stance. Evelyn repeated the same movement in front of him.

After that night, practicing in the moonlight became part of their training. Evelyn realized that the harder she tried to make out everything in the dark, the more her attention scattered. She was learning to follow the position of the sword in her hand, the ground beneath her feet, and the sound of the movement before her together.

Sometimes Bai Shen had her wait motionless in the clearing. At first, Evelyn searched for the daytime sounds of the village she knew. Then she began distinguishing the distant wind, air passing between the stones, and the sound of her own clothing as she moved.

She had not forgotten her past while doing these things. When her mind wandered during training, she set her foot wrong or lowered her sword too soon. She recognized her mistake and returned to the practice. The time she spent beside Bai Shen required her to give her attention to the task before her.

Summer passed. In the first winter after autumn, Evelyn was still practicing the same basic turn. Her kung fu training continued alongside her sword work. Bai Shen wanted her to see the other person’s balance instead of resisting their strength; every evening, Evelyn tried again at what she had done wrong. She did not consider herself fully trained after one season.

In her second summer, she accompanied hotel guests with two guides from the village. On the first walks, she stayed at the back of the line. When an elderly tourist grew short of breath, Bai Shen showed her where they should stop. On another day, when fog rolled in, she could not locate a slope she thought she knew. Returning with the villagers, she learned the rocks’ positions relative to one another again.

In the following years, she led local and foreign groups through the same mountains. She took easy routes with families from the hotel and reached the high ridges with experienced hikers. Through the seasons, she saw how a place open in summer closed in winter, and which hollows the sound of water announced in spring. After every return, she continued practicing with Bai Shen. Learning to guide others did not mean she no longer needed her master.

Several years had passed since she came to the village. Approaching her late thirties, she now knew at which door she could find tea, and which villager would bring his flock down before the weather turned. She read the news from her gallery in England and responded to decisions requiring her attention. Staying in the village did not mean leaving responsibility for her own life to someone else.

As the cold increased, the earth in the clearing hardened.

The snow on the peaks advanced downward, and thin ice remained in the shadows of stone walls in the mornings. Evelyn now checked where she placed her feet on her way to the training ground. She climbed more easily up the slope where she had stopped to rest on her first arrival, and no longer remembered the old ache in the hand that had carried her suitcase.

Bai Shen continued their practice on the road extending to the edge of the village. Following him, Evelyn tried to match her walk to the master’s steps. But stepping where Bai Shen stepped did not always produce the same result. Evelyn needed to find her own balance.

When the wind from the slope struck her face, she raised her shoulders and tucked her neck down. After a while, she realized this posture tired her more quickly and relaxed. She steadied her breathing and kept walking.

They stopped where they could see the valley.

Evelyn looked down. Parts of the space between the two slopes lay in shadow. Snow had not yet covered all of it. The rocks on the opposite side were exposed; no path could be made out between them.

Bai Shen rested his staff beside him.

“Wait for the right time to cross the mountains. When winter comes, the hollow of the valley will fill. But remember, when you cross snow-covered passes, touch nothing. Not a leaf, not a stone. Nature does not like to be followed,” Bai Shen said.

Evelyn turned to her master. She had listened as closely as she listened to his other instructions during training. Then she looked at the valley again. She tried to understand how snow would change a place that seemed impassable today.

“Why do the same people always lead at the pass?” Evelyn asked.

Bai Shen pointed to the two high mountain ridges opposite them.

“According to the belief here, the person leading the group must be an unmarried woman,” Bai Shen said. “She must have good intentions. She must not have used people for her own interests or harmed anyone for profit.”

“Does that apply to everyone following her too?” Evelyn asked.

“To the guide in front,” Bai Shen said. “The people walking behind her may be different.”

Evelyn looked at the pass again. She could see the wide area between the two ridges. Leading there meant more than taking the first step. She could not choose a route without knowing the condition of those following her.

“Knowing the way is not enough if I fail to notice someone falling behind,” Evelyn said.

“That is why I do not teach you only to look at the ground,” Bai Shen said.

The master did not try to explain the belief away. Evelyn did not start an argument about it either. She knew that during evening training, she missed the movement before her when her attention returned to her own troubles. On the mountain, looking after the person behind her was part of the decision she would make.

When Bai Shen began walking toward the village, Evelyn took her place beside him.

As they approached the stone houses, the sound of swords came from the clearing again. Evelyn headed there with her master. She would continue her practice where she had left off. Before crossing to the other side of the mountain, she still had things to learn.