Already Dead

Trevor Leggett was head of the Japanese Department of the BBC.

This is one of his broadcasts to Japan

Zubari [undated]

Hello listeners!

Sometimes one hears a joke which sounds idiotic, but turns out unexpectedly to have an application to life. There is a very old Spanish joke:

‘It is possible that a man received six bullets right through his heart, and yet they do not kill him.’

‘How can that be possible?’

‘The man is already dead.’

The bullets do not kill him, because he is already dead. The joke seems quite silly.

But recently I came across two cases which correspond to this joke. The first case was a Japanese one. It Is in the memoirs of a Meiji born Japanese who was a fervent patriot, and also a Kendo expert. When Japan’s defeat came, he decided to commit seppuku.

When he came to this resolution, a few days after the Emperor’s broadcast, he was walking in the country, thinking what to do. He decided to commit the formal suicide at once, and went home to get a tantõ knife to do it with. On the way, he was suddenly surrounded by three men and confronted by a man with a gun, who looked at his comparatively good clothes, and demanded: “Give me your money or I will kill you!” The Kendo man thought, ‘This is a good opportunity to die!’ and walked straight at him. The man became confused, and suddenly put the gun in his pocket and ran off.

The Kendo man remarked, “I could walk straight at him because in a way I was already dead.” The experience made a big change in his outlook. He thought, ‘I can work for the reconstruction of Japan in this spirit – that I am already dead.’ He became a prominent figure in his local community and helped in its reconstruction, in a spirit of total unselfishness.

This is a very Japanese story. But I came across something similar in an incident in Britain, where a middle-aged man intervened when he saw two big men shouting at a small man, and apparently threatening to beat him up. He walked forward and cried out in a loud voice, “This is quite wrong! If you big men want to fight, fight men your own size!” They turned on him, and one said, “We’ll beat you up too!” To their amazement he said, “I don’t care – you can kill me if you want to!’”

As in the Japanese case, they became bewildered, and in the end went away.  One of the by-standers, who had not dared to intervene, congratulated the middle-aged man on his courage. “You are not afraid of death at all?” “No,” replied the other sadly, “I would welcome something sudden. I have been told I have only a few weeks to live; I have cancer seriously.”

A third case, though not quite the same, I read in the memoirs of the Chief Croupier at Monte Carlo. He was talking about the gamblers there, and he remarked that they are bound to lose in the long run, (because the gambling odds are slightly against the patrons, and slightly in favour of the ‘House’ (the owners of the gambling halls).) So, all gamblers are fools; they may win occasionally, but in the long run they are sure to lose. But, he said, he had once seen a sensible gambler. This was about 1920.

This was an Englishman who suddenly appeared at the gambling table with the highest stakes. He put one thousand pounds on the Red – there are the two, Red and Black. It won, but he left the stake there on the Red; it was now two thousand pounds. Still he left it, and it was four thousand. He left it there, and by chance it happened that Red came up again and again till the stake was worth thirty-two thousand pounds. Then the Englishman quietly took the money, and went back to England. That was big money in 1920.

The croupier later heard that he was a businessman who had been taking big risks in his business, which was now about to collapse. He needed thirty thousand pounds to save his business; if he could not get it, he would probably go to prison. He could not find credit anywhere, so he took the last thousand pounds of cash, and went to Monte Carlo, with a gun in his luggage. If he lost, he had resolved to shoot himself.

Perhaps he thought of himself as already dead. But when I read it, I wondered how many others had tried it and failed.

Well, till next week. Sayonara.

© Trevor Leggett