The Golden Age

To cheer the children up after the heat wave, all the nurses except Sister Penny take them on an excursion to the shore. They set up camp in an old farmhouse on the beach, where the children can keep their crutches and rest when they’re tired. Even though they can’t stand in the water by themselves, all the children are invigorated by their proximity to the ocean and the excitement of eating outside. Only Elsa is sad, because she’s always lived by the sea and visiting now reminds her of all the things she’ll never be able to do again. She thinks about Sally riding the bike that was her pride and joy before polio.

Sitting by the farmhouse, Frank feels that he wants to write a poem. The shabby farmhouse reminds him of the migrant camp where the Golds stayed when they arrived in Australia. From his parents’ stories, he knows they used to vacation on an enormous lake in Hungary surrounded by large summer houses and forests, but he can’t remember any of this. He can’t even remember how to speak Hungarian anymore, but he doesn’t care because he’s excited to learn and write in English.

After dinner, the children watch the sunset. Knowing that Elsa is sad, Frank seeks her out, and when he finally sees her, the poem he’s been searching for occurs to him. He marvels that Elsa inspires all of his poems now. He still can’t finish “On My Last Day on Earth,” but now he wants to write a new collection about Elsa, called “On My First Day on Earth.”

Frank tells Elsa that if they were animals she would be a golden palomino, and he’d be a fox following her. This makes Elsa laugh, although he’s being serious. Elsa thinks that there’s something “hungry” about Frank; he’s always seizing what he wants, as if otherwise someone will take it away. She wonders if this was because he lived through the war. She wonders if the things he writes can really be poetry, because they don’t rhyme. Elsa’s less certain about her feelings than Frank is, but she misses him when he’s not there, and she always listens for his voice when she wakes up. As they walk back to the group, they surreptitiously hold hands.