Ghost Train to the Eastern Star

Todai-ji Temple of the Kegon sect was huge and hulking, and because of the rooflines and the porches, not just a pile of lumber but a graceful, heavy-browed presence. This eighteenth-century structure was the single most imposing building I saw in the whole of Japan. And inside, the monumental Buddha, cast in bronze, was the largest of its kind in Japan, called the Vairocana Buddha. It matched the temple that enshrined it, and was equally impressive in tonnage and in implied wisdom. The Sanskrit word Vairocana meant the Illuminator—this Buddha was associated with "the sun and the light of grace." It made me feel like an insect. This was no doubt the intention of Emperor Shomu, who was responsible for it all.

"What about S. J. Perelman—do you like his work?"

I said, "Very funny stuff. I like it a lot. I knew him in London."

"I wish I'd met him."

"These pillars support the roof but not the walls. The walls aren't load-bearing. That's why it's lasted."

"It burned down several times, though. It was bigger before by about a third."

"Perelman called me in London after I'd reviewed one of his books. A rave review. He was pleased. 'Let's have lunch.'"

"Friendly?"

"Very. And a natty dresser. Something of a womanizer. Well read. Widely traveled. Those crazy pieces are based on real trips he made to Shanghai before the war, Java, Egypt, Uganda. He was probably here at some point. He was an Anglophile, but living in England cured him of that. He was strangely anti-Semitic."

"No!"

"But he was always Yiddling, as he called it, using Yiddishisms to express it. He wrote a piece about Israel in the 1970s for Travel and Leisure and they wouldn't print it. Or maybe they made him tone it down."

"I think he knew Norman Lewis."

"Another great traveler. I loved Naples '44 and his book about the Mafia"

"And A Dragon Apparent, about Southeast Asia."

Normally, "Look at that statue" is an irritating remark, but I would have missed the statue if Pico hadn't spoken. Although it was off to one side, it was a three-times-life-size seated figure of an old man with a lined face and piercing eyes, carved in wood, its luminous staring expression somewhat unearthly. He was holding a bulbous scepter. A red cloth bonnet and red cape gave him the look of the wolf in "Little Red Riding Hood." The plaque under the figure gave its name as Binzuru (Pindola Bharadvaja) and explained that he was one of only sixteen ar-hats—ascetics and disciples of the Buddha. And Binzuru was "the most widely revered of all the arhats in Japan," and "famous for his mastery of occult powers."

That explained the stare. The small print on the plaque listed instructions for using the statue as a health aid. One was to touch a part of the statue and then, with the same hand, touch a corresponding part of one's own body to promote health or healing.

I touched Binzuru's knee, and my own, to keep my chronic gout away.

"Joseph Conrad had gout."

"Maybe he got it in Africa, as I did. I was horribly dehydrated on a Zambezi trip. I didn't pee for two days. I was in a tent, half delirious. It damaged my kidneys. After that, I had my first attack of gout in my big toe."

"Isn't the light beautiful at this time of day?" Pico said. "What about Hunter Thompson?"

"I saw him when he came to Hawaii. He was always snorting coke or smoking dope or drinking whiskey. He was one of the most timid travelers I've ever known. When he was back in Colorado, he used to call me up at two in the morning. I think he was in pain most of the time."

"He was someone else whom Jann Wenner rescued. Don't you think Jan Morris was at her best when she was writing for Rolling Stone

in the eighties?"

Walking downhill along the narrow lanes to the Deer Park again, we evaluated all the men and women who were traveling and writing today, assigning points to those who traveled alone and wrote well, detracting points for attitude, posturing, lying, fictionalizing, or being blimpish.

"And that's Kaidan-in," Pico said, indicating a chalet-like shrine with a meticulously tended garden, the shrubs in bud and some beginning to blossom. As we watched the shrine from its perimeter fence, snow began to fall, the large wet flakes like white blossoms. "I haven't seen snow here for nine years."

"I've heard your father was a guru," I said.

"Wherever could you have heard that," Pico said, and it wasn't a question. "It's true. After he settled in Santa Barbara. It was the 1960s."

"Guru of what?"

"Of the spirit. Of Iyerism, I suppose," Pico said. "Lots of theosophy."

"Isis Unveiled? Madam Blavatsky? Walter Besant? Swami Vivekananda?"