The New Breed by Griffin W. E. B

Author:Griffin, W. E. B. [Griffin, W. E. B.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Historical, War, Adventure, Fantasy, thriller
ISBN: 9780515092264
Amazon: 0515092266
Goodreads: 214714
Publisher: G.P. Putnam's Sons
Published: 1987-09-02T07:00:00+00:00

(Two)

Albertville, Democratic Republic of the Congo

14 June 1964

Martin Luther Nsagamdo was short, slight, and twenty-eight years old, but looked older. He had had rickets as a result of malnutrition as a child, and by the time he had been taken in by the Lutheran Mission of St. John (Missouri Synod), the damage was beyond repair.

The Lutherans had taught him English, and how to read and write, and that God had sent his own son, Jesus Christ, to save sinners, black and white.

Martin Luther Nsagamdo had been an unusually bright child, and there had been talk of sending him to the United States on a scholarship, but in the end there had been no money. He finished the missionary school, which went through the equivalent of eighth grade, and then he was sent to Kolwezi, to the Belgian Catholics, who ran a high school, St. Agnes’s, for bright youngsters.

That hadn’t worked out either. He lasted two years, just long enough to more or less master French and to operate a typewriter. But he had great difficulty with mathematics; and Father Henri had gently explained to him that perhaps God had other plans for him than becoming a clerk. And that it was now time for him to leave school, as space had to be made for others.

Martin was then, so far as he knew, about fourteen. He returned to Albertville and tried to find work in the mines, but they would not have him because he didn’t look strong enough. So he found work in the kitchen of a Belgian mining engineer. He did the kitchen laundry, shined the pots and pans and stoves, and saw that the Belgian’s dog got what the Belgian wanted him to have and that the food just didn’t disappear from the kitchen.

And he learned how to cook. Not fancy—that involved secrets the Belgian’s cook was not foolish enough to share with him—but simple. He could fry eggs, broil ham and chicken, and make roasts of pork and beef. He stayed with the Belgian and his family eight years, then worked for another Belgian for two.

Then he went to work for K. N. Swayer, the chef Américain who had come to Albertville to put trucks together. Because he was loud and took the Lord Jesus’ name in vain very frequently and sometimes drank himself into oblivion, K. N. Swayer at first frightened Martin Luther Nsagamdo. But he came to understand that he was really a good man, that the Americans who put the huge trucks together were different from the Americans of the Lutheran Mission of St. John (Missouri Synod) and from the Belgians. Not worse, just different.

Martin Luther’s cooking pleased K. N. Swayer. He liked steak and potatoes and a tomato, or roast pork and potatoes and a tomato, and for a sweet ate ice cream flown in from Leopoldville, over which he sometimes poured chocolate syrup and sometimes Benedictine.

And he taught Martin Luther Nsagamdo to drive his car, and he put him in charge of keeping it spotless.

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