It could be good, or it could just be the same.

Every day, children like Emma struggle to survive on the streets of Geneva without Toblerone, Dolce Gabbana toddler sandals, or even water…here, little Emma drinks from a puddle on the street. Impoverished children of consultants and aid workers - just like Emma - need your help now.

In the last week of July, we beached ourselves on the Italian Riveria with Serena’s parents. We followed a daily regimen of: swim, breakfast on cappuccino and focaccia, watch Emma poke cool sand, lunch, nap, play cards with Serena’s father’s friends, dunk Emma in waves until she cried, dine and go to bed.

Serena wore skimpy bikinis all week. One morning, as she was standing at the café bar drinking her cappuccino, the elderly father of the owner of the bagno leaned close, and admired, “Beautiful woman. And your clothing provokes me!” He put his hand on the small of her back. The owner of the bagno shrugged, “Eh, you’re back in Italy now.” I hoped that the jiggling nymphs on the beach had similar desires, and asked Serena if I looked old. She squinted at me and said, “No, you look worried.”

Our luck has been mixed since our return from our holiday to Geneva. We are subletting a one-bedroom apartment. The owner is a classical music fan, and has hundreds of records and CDs that I listen to while cleaning the apartment. We just finished reading “The Bookseller of Kabul”, which describes the Afghanistan of 2002 just as I knew it…and how women are treated as slaves. So now Serena likes to play Afghan man and mistreat me while I wear a dishcloth over my head like a burqa and bring her tea.

We play games with Emma and try to teach her. Serena uses a fluffy white puppet of a lamb to teach words like nose (“naso”) and eye (“occhio”). Emma brings me the puppet. The puppet becomes Menstruating Sheep, who has a kind of whiny Long Island accent: “Do you have a spare pad? I’m bleeding heavily. I was in such a hurry this morning, and ran out the door. I’m so embarrassed. Am I spotting my white outfit?” Serena says that someday I’ll be sorry.

Emma sleeps in the kitchen. At first we felt bad, because the refrigerator was running loudly. The noise increased each night, making us feel more and more guilty as we watched French TV in our room. Three days ago, Serena noticed that the refrigerator wasn’t keeping the food cold any more. We tried to keep things in the freezer, but somehow flies got in there and died. Two days ago, the fridge blew the kitchen’s fuse and stopped altogether. Yesterday I ate only dairy products. Today our salads are briny and stick together like leaves in a gutter. Our landlord is in Paris, so we have to shop each day for fresh food, which is very European, I guess. Emma sleeps very well now. We will be here until August 14. We wonder if we should have taken the pornographer’s house three weeks ago, but he was charging so much for such a little place. We also wonder if he would mind that we call him the pornographer.

The apartment has about 40 square feet of hardwood floor space. Last night, after Emma’s bath, Serena let Emma run around without a diaper and play Naked Baby, Naked Baby. It ended badly. We heard a crack-thump, and turned around to find Emma face down in a puddle. She had peed and then slipped where she was standing, right in her own effluent. Serena said that now Emma has something in common with her father.