I intend to return to India from China and then go to
Italy, where I want you to go and find a villa for me to stay in. I will come at
the end of July. Assemble the gopis there.
"Give Meredith his return tickets to New York, and
pay him $500 for return passage to England for him and Margaret. Tell him I wish
him to continue his work at Devonshire.1
"And tell all in California that I will not break my
silence in Hollywood as announced."
This was a difficult duty for Quentin, but his faith in
Baba deepened. Quentin thought to himself: "No ordinary man would behave
like this." The result was as expected: When Quentin conveyed the news,
though there was disappointment, particularly with Meredith Starr and Marc
Jones, there was no flagging of faith among the sincere, like Malcolm and
Jean.2 The
main reason was that Baba's love had drawn certain ones close to him and his
love would not let them stray.
That night, after seeing Rustom off to Australia aboard
the Monterey , Baba and the other mandali had dinner.3 Afterward,
they went to a movie at the Empire Theater.
On Friday, 10 June 1932, a friend of Elizabeth's
named Mrs. Hutchins came with her sister to see Baba. (They had also come to meet the
ship.) Baba went for another drive in the afternoon through Honolulu, to
the Niumalu Hotel and later to the Waikiki Aquarium. In the
evening Baba went to the Liberty Theater and saw Gladys George in the play, A
Church Mouse .
On 11 June at 7:45 A.M., Baba went for breakfast with
Chanji and Quentin to Mrs. Walter Dillingham's palatial villa, La
Pietra, on the western slope of Diamond Head.4 "Baba
seemed disinclined to go," Quentin recorded in his diary, but it was too
late to postpone the invitation. When they returned, they left again at nine
o'clock to take Carl Philipp to his ship; an American woman was to accompany
the boy. Carl appeared sad at leaving Baba, but true to Baba's prediction,
it was later learned the boy did speak out against Baba when he returned.5
At noon, Baba, Kaka, Chanji, Beheram and Adi Jr. also set
sail for the eleven-day voyage to China on the Empress of Japan . Quentin had come to see them off. He too was feeling the pangs of separation. "I stayed an hour with Baba and
the boys," he later wrote, "and then was getting so depressed and sad,
I tore myself away from them. Although I was to see [Baba] soon, I felt desperately
sad at seeing him go. It seemed when Baba left as though the soul had gone out
of America."
Footnotes
- 1.Quentin met Meredith in Santa Barbara and delivered Baba's instructions; but instead of returning to Devonshire, Meredith and Margaret, at the invitation of Gavin Arthur, went to stay with Sam Cohen at the sand dunes community near Oceano until October 1932, at which time they returned to the East Challacombe retreat. (Milo Shattuck, Norina and Elizabeth also visited the sand dunes, where a cabin was being built for Baba.)
- 2.Marc Jones had spent a large amount of money to book the Hollywood Bowl.
- 3.Rustom was not permitted to land in Sydney due to strict immigration laws. The exact details of his trip are not known, but the purpose was to forge further links with the West, the result of which was made evident after a number of years when many Australians came into Meher Baba's fold.
- 4.Walter F. Dillingham, a leading industrialist and entrepreneur from Honolulu, was known as the "Baron of Hawaii Industry." A highly influential businessman, he is credited with developing urban Honolulu. In 1919, Dillingham built a palatial villa at Papaenaena (an ancient Hawaiian altar to the surf and place of human sacrifice). The home, called La Pietra, was designed by David Adler, and was modeled after a Florentine villa owned by Mrs. Dillingham's uncle Arthur Acton. It is now a private academy for girls. Dillingham is most famous for draining the wetlands of Waikiki in the early 1920s. He also played a key role in the creation of Pearl Harbor as the Navy's major mid-Pacific naval base. (Main source: Wikipedia)
- 5.Carl Philipp seems to have led people to believe that he was mistreated or molested during his trip. A letter from the boy's school making such allegations was printed in The Los Angeles Times.