The Beginners

The Beginners - In spite of his age, Avrom Glickman was still upright and slender. The hair on his head was dark and curling, that of his full, spade-shaped beard was white; and the contrast made his face seem strong and decisive. But there was no strength in his gray, shortsighted eyes; only a weak bewilderment and amiability. His single leather bag had been stowed in the cabin that he was to share with eleven others during the journey to Southampton; now he and his sons, Meyer and Benjamin, stood on the deck of the Union Castle liner. It was a bright, clear day. From the boat Cape Town looked like a village, dwarfed by the huge bulk of Table Mountain immediately behind it. The town was no more than a scattering of iron roofs, of church steeples, of gables, of trees; then the mountain rose, at first gradual in its slope and faintly green, but soon rising sheer, precipitous and bare, slashed here and there by great gullies which zigzagged down its flanks. Darker and lighter shades of brown yielded to the blue of distance and height, and then abruptly the ascent was cut off by the wide, flat top of the mountain. Beyond it a few white clouds, and the sun shining. The three men leaned in silence over the rail, staring down at the confusion of Cape Colored porters and white passengers, occasionally glancing at the stillness and emptiness of the mountain above. The brothers looked much alike, neither taking after his father. They were both thickset, the elder more powerful in build than the younger, who was more a boy than a man; they both had heavy features and protruding lower lips and wore their hair brushed directly back from their foreheads. ...