The Individual, Auto/biography and History in South Africa

I feel the pang of being unable to meet you [with] the
knowledge that others will gather around you, as by right,
joyously surrounding you, and you greeting them and returning
to the house, and talking and laughing and exchanging word
and touch. But I, full to the brim with those burning images,
have no means of outlet, no relief, no possibility to go simply sit
by your side, and talk and talk and listen, sharing all that you
have been through. Instead of that, I must remain quiet and
passive, and far away, denied all natural expression of this tide
of feeling. How should I then feel [about] a mounting pain as
the hours pass, knowing that you can only come when it is
convenient to come…? What of all those burning images with
which I have shared your absence? Must I carry them in my
breast like a dead child? 64
And the anxiety Taylor felt about seeing Tabata was mutual. In 1959, while Taylor was
in England for five months, Tabata expressed his anguish at her absence, amid all the
complexities of his ban, mounting internal bloodletting, and their decision to temper
their mutual desires. In a letter that did not make it into the Tabata Collection, Tabata
wrote:
Now that my emotions are thawing I am becoming restive. I
want to tackle something but you are not there. I find it hard
to take in the fact that for the next 4‐5 months I shall not see
you. I must have been sick or sleeping when you planned your
trip to last so long without any protest from me. 65
Having started as Workers Party comrades, Tabata and Taylor’s relationship had
developed as one of reciprocal political and literary interchange, and mutual
commitment to political mobilisation and political principle. From about the late 1940s,
Tabata and Taylor’s relationship of political and cultural production drew an added
element of emotion and sexuality as they were increasingly drawn to each other beyond
their political work. By the 1950s, under very tricky conditions of repression and internal
political division, Tabata and Taylor made the difficult decision to temper their
64 Dora Taylor, Extended Diary, entry for “Saturday night April 1957” (5 April 1957), Dora Taylor
Papers.
65 I.B. Tabata to Dora Taylor (in England), 24 May 1959, Dora Taylor Papers.
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