We’re Pregnant and I Can’t Speak Japanese. William Hay

as something trivial and not really necessary. It was so unnecessary that we were given the run around in standard 14-day bureaucratic response times, required to lodge our paperwork twice then resubmit it a further two times. Each time the wedding date changed from the original January 13, because naturally you can’t backdate things.

      That insignificant “one more thing” turned out to be a Certificate of No Impediment issued by the Australian Embassy. It seemed the blessing from my wife’s parents wasn’t enough. Now, I needed the blessing of the Australian Prime Minister to get married. My wife’s parents were happy with a fuddled three-line request in elementary Japanese and a small box of traditional Japanese cakes. The Australian government wanted cash, about $120 worth after the conversion from yen to dollars for a single sheet of A4 paper stating they had no problem with me getting married. I never imagined the Prime Minister thought so highly of me.

      With the “one more thing” finalised, all we had to do was choose a new wedding date, any date we liked, even something as novel as 5 May 2005, which would become 05-05-05. If we chose to get married at 5.05am on that date, it could be 05-05-05-05-05. That is, if May 5^th was considered a good day for getting married according to Japanese superstition. Each month there are good, bad and ordinary days. How these days are allocated is a mystery, but not something my wife was willing to dismiss. She wasn’t about to tempt fate or put up with my ranting that it was just a load of mumbo-jumbo, outdated bullshit that has no relevance to modern day existence beyond selling calendars. She would tell me to go smash a mirror. To her it was just a looking glass; it was just like breaking a drinking glass. But to me, it meant seven years bad luck. I left the decision of the wedding date and lodging all the paperwork up to my wife.

      We were either married in February, March or April. I know for a fact it wasn’t January 13 the day I had engraved on my wife’s wedding ring because it came free with the price of the ring. And, somehow the small wedding reception we had discussed to placate the relatives in Japan remains just a discussion. My wife was happy to settle for a wedding photograph. That meant spending a few hours on a Saturday morning in a photography studio posing in rented wedding attire to mark the ceremony and reception we didn’t have. I was reluctant to play dress up, but conceded it was a huge sacrifice for my wife who probably would have had the complete wedding shebang with the traditional white kimono, the five-star hotel banquet room with the exquisite French cuisine, the flowers and bouquets, and the chauffeured limousine had she married a Kenji Suzuki when she was younger. For me, the wedding photo thing was like going to an amusement park and sticking your face in the cut outs above the bodies riding long boards on a Masonite postcard that read: “Having a great time in Honolulu!” We didn’t really go to Hawaii just like we didn’t really have a wedding reception. Somehow, the wedding photo, too, remains something my wife brings up every so often, but thankfully we never get around to doing. I wonder if there are good and bad days for getting wedding photos.

      Lucky

      My wife’s period still hasn’t come, but the sore breasts remain, which of course to me means that it is just a little late in arriving this month. I have huge doubts over her ability to track her period. She’s forever forgetting to pay bills on time, friends’ birthdays, my birthday (although it’s not such a big deal these day, but a chocolate cake would be nice) to pick up her dry cleaning, to set the VCR to record her favourite TV show, to buy that one thing extra you ask her to pick up at the supermarket and remind her just as she leaves the door. Now, if she can’t remember things that occur on a certain day each week, each month, each year or something out of the ordinary, how is she going to remember something that floats between days and weeks each month?

      Besides, over the past month she has been preoccupied with us shopping for an apartment, not a rental but our very own piece of real estate where we could lay our roots and which hopefully won’t sink into a yawning chasm when that long overdue next big earthquake hits Tokyo. Onweekends, we would traipse off to some model room for a yet-to-be-built apartment complex on the outskirts of Tokyo. Each time, we would fall in love with the design, the size, the layout, the proximity to the station, the name of the complex, even the tea the sales staff served before delivering their spiel, and in some cases the sales staff, only to find it was $400,000 over our budget of $400,000.

      We finally settled for a smaller, less attractive apartment in a not so attractive suburb that had the potential for capital gain if the 20-year slide in Japanese real estate ever turns around. But, saying, yeswe’ll buy it!to the salesperson apparently wasn’t enough. Our name, my wife’s name actually, had to go into a draw, as three other couples wanted the same apartment. It seems there wasn’t a lot of choice for people like us wallowing at the bottom end of the market or we had just fallen for a sales ploy to get us to decide quickly. And, that sales lady looked so honest.

      When the phone didn’t ring at 7.00pm, the scheduled time for notifying the applicants of the result of the draw, I was philosophical and a little relieved as I felt we’d rushed into making a decision. Thirty-five minutes later, the phone rang no doubt with a message of commiseration.By the time I could catch up to my wife who had rushed for the phone, she was punching the air like she had just knocked outMike Tyson and kept both of her ears intact.

      We have to give them a ten percent deposit on Monday, she said, hugging me as if we were the luckiest people in Tokyo.

      Her unadulterated joy was infectious. We were winners! I hadn’t won anything in years that I was going to have to pay off for the term of my natural life. Then my mind did the maths: ten percent of $400,000 is $40,000. $40,000!

       They want $40,000 the day after tomorrow?

      Don’t worry, we don’t have to come up with the other ten percent until the end of next yearbefore we move in, she said, thinking it was somewhat soothing to hole that burnt through my wallet and scorched my backside.

      A 20-percent deposit; that was the deal. I remembered that figure because the monthly repayments were a little higher than the rent we are paying now. I also remembered an additional $20,000 for taxes and commissions. We were just so lucky!

      My wife’s period still hasn’t come. For some reason, my wife has decided to take her temperature every morning before six to check if it is constantly elevated. She has a new high-tech thermometer which you place under your arm and not under your tongue. You have to press the set button, wait for it to beep to signify it is ready then place it in your armpit and wait for it to beep again to signify it has a reading. The problem is that my wife falls back to sleep in the few seconds it takes to record her temperature. Over the past week, she doesn’t know if there has been a change in her temperature or not, and I’m hyper-irritable because her electric thermometer beeps louder than our buzzing alarm clock and has robbed me of an extra half-hour’s sleep each morning.

      Also, in the week that has just gone, she has worked out a budget for us to save the remainder of our deposit. If we add her annual bonus payments into the equation and cash in all of our grossly under-performing stocks along with saving a regular amount each month, which amounts to my entire month’s salary, it’s doable. We just can’t afford furniture. I did some calculating of my own and figured out that her period was only a week late because I was sure she didn’t have her period when she went for a two-hour Thai massage. Consequently, there was no need to jump to any conclusions about babies.

      I don’t think you’re pregnant, and as for your sore boobs… I start, and then spot the tiny lump under her arm.

      She’s had it for years, had it tested years ago, and diagnosed as nothing more than a cyst. It’s about the size of a button on one of my work shirts and about as thick. I can’t tell if it had grown since I last noticed it, but anyone who knows NOTHING about cancer like me, even though my mother succumbed to the disease, will tell you it’s the secondary cancer that kills you. There was cause for concern: the lump under her arm was the primary cancer and the sore breasts could possibly be the secondary.

      You should get that checked out,I say, nonchalantly so as not to frighten her.

      She gives me the usual yeah, yeah, yeah response, so I say:

      You