18. Channelling Kate Logue (Jul. 2016)
The Kate Logue of concern today is the unique Irish lass who had an intense ten-day affair with André Breton in Derry/Londonderry, Northern Ireland in 1923, a year before his seminal work, Manifeste du Surréalisme (Surrealist Manifesto) was published. She was known as ‘Faraway Kate’ by the townsfolk, as she had a peculiar mental illness, anosognosic schizophrenia, which caused her to be unsure of who she was. In fact she would often walk along the River Foyle asking passersby: “Who am I?” And Kate was not being facetious; she really wanted to know, as she had no idea. Though not nearly as renown as Kiki de Montparnasse, Kate ó Doire [‘of Derry’ in Gaelic] deserves more than a shadowy footnote in the annals of surrealism. After all, Breton stated: “I could spend my whole life prying loose the secrets of Kate Logue. She is honest to a fault and her naïveté has no peer but my own. Christopher Columbus should have set out to discover America with a boatload of Kate Logues.” [Colin Darke, André Breton, The Derry Years]
Well, after reading about this most intriguing Kate Logue two years ago, I hoped that she would appear in one of my dreams. And then she did just that the other night. In this most splendid dream, we were sitting together on a bench looking at the swift-flowing, dark-colored River Foyle. She was ghostlike, in her mid-20s, wearing a ragged peasant dress, and noticeably shoeless. Kate hovered, raising and lowering ever so slightly in the downstream breeze. It was 1924, but there were only the two of us. The town was eerily abandoned.
I was thoroughly entranced. After maybe five or so minutes, I cautiously commenced the conversation. “So, is this where you once walked, Kate?”
“Yes, this area here. This is where I walked and walked, day after day, looking for the right answer. The fishermen were useless, but quite lecherous. Bastards!”
“Did you know that they thought you were crazy?”
“Yeah, I suppose so. I heard plenty of ‘crazy lady!’ shouts. Sure, I knew I was different when I had to stay at that mental hospital. [Gransha] I couldn’t understand why no one else was wondering who they were. How could they all be so sure of who they were? It completely baffled me. I really had no idea of who I was. Oh, I knew I was a human female, who had parents and siblings, and was on planet Earth. But, beyond that …”
“So, your question was much deeper than just a forgotten name.”
“Precisely. It was like my ‘me-ness’ had been stolen one night when I was very, very young.”
“Kate, do you remember the day that you started wondering who you were?”
“I sure don’t. It just seemed like I was always like that. It was if I was just some test case. Sometimes I thought that some mad scientist had done something to my brain. His staff was watching my every move and listening to everything I said. They were documenting me. Yes, I was convinced of it. Sometimes I thought that I was just a mind experiment gone horribly wrong.”
“Wow! I’m so sad to hear you say that.”
“It’s ok. I’m done with the mortal phase now. You’ve still got to get up and go to work.”
“Hey, don’t remind me.”
“Sorry. No, I don’t miss being human at all, 33. That is your number, right?”
“Yep, that’s it.”
“Agents with randomly assigned numbers in a psecret psociety spelled with silent p’s. Yeah, André probably would have liked that, I think. He was quite suspicious of music, but the strangeness of numbers fascinated him, I think.”
“And you met Mr. Breton down here by the river, right?”
“Yes, very close to where we are now. He was an odd duck himself. I think he was unnerved by the sectarian strife. You know, the Irish wars.”
“Oh, yes. Northern Ireland was being partitioned out. Not the nicest of times on the emerald isle.”
“No, it certainly wasn’t. I wasn’t the only one without shoes. And I was most certainly aware of that.”
“What was André like?”
“In the spud sack?”
“No, no, not that. I mean, his demeanor, his outlook.”
“He had this intense shyness, yet had incredible focus and desire. He was very attuned to nuance. Why, one day a string of butterflies passed over us, and I swear it was like he had an epiphany right then and there. When I asked him what he had thought, he just looked at me with his mouth agape. One thing that I know is that he hated that God-forsaken world war – totally despised it. He really distrusted the ruling elites after that.”
“I see. I guess he was further saddened when there was yet another world war.”
“I’m sure that he was.”
“Kate, what did you think about in the mental hospital, all those hours?”
“All kinds of things. I couldn’t get my mind to stop. No matter how far one line of thought went out, it always came back to the ‘Who am I?’ question. I could never get a good answer. Though, André’s was pretty good. It’s what caused me to walk with him on that overcast day.”
“What was his answer?”
“I’m sorry, but I promised him that I would never tell.”
“Ok, I won’t pry.”
“Thanks, you’re a polite American.”
“Well, sometimes.”
“Ok, you have one more question, Agent 33. Make it a good one. Your dreamtime is almost up.”
“Miss Logue, when you look back at this place and time from your postmortem perspective, is there any realization that you arrive at regarding this human life? Might you have any advice for an old sod like me? Is there something different that I should be doing?”
“Woah, you slyly slid in a three-part question.”
“Sorry, not sure when I’ll be able to converse with you again. I have a hard time of steering my dreams.”
“Ok, you see those ants down there?”
I looked down and suddenly saw some tiny ants crawling to and fro over a discarded, rotting potato. “I do now.”
“See that one ant strangely wandering out of line?”
And with a gust of wind, she was gone. I was suddenly aware that I was dreaming. What a five-star dream that was. Must write down some notes before I forget.
Then my cell phone chirped. I awoke and grabbed the LG semi-smartphone. It was a text message from Agent X35.
Do you still have ants in your basement, Agent 33?