Chapter 12 Children Hear You #3
When that confusion was cleared up, there would be other pitfalls for the young James Winslow—beginning with his dawning awareness of where he came from.
As he was aware, his hands were comparatively bigger than the rest of him.
If the boy’s disproportionate paws came from the tall woman who’d given birth to him, Jimmy wondered what he was going to inherit from his father.
Like his granddad, James Winslow was transfixed by the photos of Moses Little Mountain; the boy seemed determined to be a wrestler. Jimmy wished he could wear a singlet, like the wrestlers wore. “I don’t know if they make singlets for children, honey,” Honor told him.
That fall of 1947, when James Winslow and Arnaud Beaudette started kindergarten together, Arnaud’s aunt Chantal may have been only two years older than Jimmy, but she was way wiser.
Naturally, the Beaudettes had seen Moshe Kleinberg’s photos—Chantal, too.
In her small, pretty hands, Chantal squeezed Jimmy’s noticeably bigger hands.
“You will have Esther’s hands, Jimmy, but you’ll look more like Little Mountain than you’ll ever look like Esther. You’re going to be small, Jimmy—maybe we’ll always be the same size,” Chantal told the boy.
In one of the photos Esther sent, young James had noticed Moshe Kleinberg’s cauliflower ears. “Am I going to have his ears?” Jimmy asked Arnaud’s aunt. The boy whispered in Chantal’s ear, because he didn’t want his friend Arnaud to hear him.
“Look at your ears, Jimmy—you don’t have ears like Little Mountain. I think the wrestling messed up his ears,” the wise girl whispered back. (Chantal Beaudette was way wiser than most children her age, too.)
Unbeknown to his family, Thomas Winslow would seek out the wrestling coach at Pennacook Academy.
For as long as Thomas could remember, the academy had a wrestling team, but Coach Ted (as everyone called him) was brand-new.
In the wrestling world, Thomas would learn, Coach Ted was already well-known.
He’d been a two-time Big Ten champion at Illinois when James Winslow was still a newborn.
Coach Ted was twice an All-American, too—placing third and second in the national championships in 1941 and 1942.
In 1945, Coach Ted moved to New Hampshire, where he became the coach at Pennacook Academy.
Though no one would think Coach Ted seemed dissatisfied, everyone thought he was overqualified for the job.
(His teams would dominate wrestling in New England prep schools for more than thirty years.)
What mattered most to Thomas Winslow, when the two men met, was that he could rely on Coach Ted’s discretion from the start.
Since Thomas began with the story of his dear grandson’s biological father, this was essential.
Coach Ted, of course, confirmed the cause and authenticity of Moshe Kleinberg’s cauliflower ears from the photos.
Little Mountain’s mangled ears were the result of repeated rubbing—not only from rubbing on the mat, but wrestlers’ heads were always rubbing together, the coach explained.
Thomas Winslow would ask if Coach Ted believed a predisposition to wrestle was hereditary.
“Sons of wrestlers are more inclined to wrestle—younger brothers of wrestlers are also more inclined to wrestle,” Coach Ted began, in his measured way.
“But this inclination is a matter of growing up around wrestling—not anything hereditary, as you say,” the coach told Thomas.
English teacher that he was, Thomas admired Coach Ted’s specificity as much as the man’s discretion.
And Thomas was excited by the prospect of his grandson growing up around wrestling; to introduce Jimmy to the sport, Thomas proposed bringing the boy to the next wrestling meet at Pennacook.
“Not so fast. Take it easy,” the coach said.
“In a couple more years, I’ll have a better team, Tommy—not to mention that your Jimmy will be old enough to sit still at a wrestling meet,” Coach Ted told him.
In Thomas Winslow’s estimation, Coach Ted would turn out to be both prescient and specific.
In the winter of 1950, Ted’s wrestlers were winning most of their matches.
By then, Thomas and James Winslow were riveted spectators.
Thomas never saw Jimmy sit as still as the boy did when he watched wrestling.
Arnaud Beaudette came to the wrestling meets with them; the wrestling totally engrossed Arnaud, too.
Sometimes Arnaud’s aunt watched the wrestling; Chantal was an animated spectator.
She shut her eyes, she winced, she was judgmental of the referees.
Chantal knew which referees she liked, and the ones she didn’t.
Once, when the ref warned a Pennacook wrestler for stalling, Chantal screamed at the ref.
“The other guy is stalling!” Chantal shouted.
Thomas and James preferred watching the lightweight wrestlers to the heavier weight classes, not only because it was evident that Jimmy would wrestle in one of the lighter weight classes.
The lightweights were quicker, and they made more moves.
“The little guys are more fun to watch,” Chantal observed.
It was evident that Arnaud Beaudette was destined to be one of the bigger wrestlers.
(Coach Ted and Thomas Winslow were already looking into a scholarship for Arnaud at the academy.)
“I know you guys are best friends, but it’s not likely you’ll be workout partners—you’ll be in different weight classes,” Thomas told them.
“If Jimmy and Arnaud are best friends, it’s just as well they won’t be workout partners,” Coach Ted told Thomas.
In 1950, James Winslow was nine. Arnaud’s aunt was eleven. “We’re still in the same weight class, you know,” Thomas overheard Chantal telling Jimmy.
That same year, Moshe Kleinberg was forty-four; he won a medal in the national Hapoel championships.
Little Mountain would be one of the wrestlers chosen to represent Israel in the Third Maccabiah Games—“like the Jewish Olympics,” Esther wrote—where Moses won another medal.
“They weren’t gold medals, maybe just silver or bronze ones,” was all Esther wrote Honor about Moses. Esther sent no photos.
In 1954, Moshe Kleinberg had stopped competing as a wrestler while Arnaud Beaudette and Jimmy Winslow couldn’t wait to start. Little Mountain was refereeing and coaching wrestling at forty-eight. Again, Esther sent no photos.
Chantal Beaudette was fifteen in 1954; she stopped coming to the wrestling meets. “When you two are wrestling, I’ll come watch you,” Chantal told Jimmy and Arnaud.
Jimmy Winslow would notice that Chantal now wore the baggy blouses and sloppy sweaters of her older, bigger sisters.
“Chantal doesn’t want anyone to know she has breasts,” Arnaud confided to Jimmy, who was already smitten with Chantal.
At thirteen, James Winslow couldn’t imagine confiding his feelings for Chantal to Arnaud.
Yet not to tell Arnaud how he felt about Chantal made Jimmy feel he was disloyal to his best friend.