The ceremonies of connection: "Palaver" by Bryan Washington

One question that might occur to a reader while observing the interaction between son and mother in Bryan Washington's "Palaver" might be: why are these two people even still trying to maintain a relationship at all? There are obvious, long-standing resentments between the two, enough that the son had to take off and flee to Japan, where he now teaches English to juvenile delinquents, just to get away from it. The two barely seem to be speaking the same language, hence the title, which refers to a sort of meeting between peoples of differing tribes who don't share the same language or culture. 

The son is having his palaver with his mother at the same time as he is constantly having to palaver his way through his life in Tokyo, where he does not speak the language beyond perhaps survival level. (The mother is holding a "magazine neither of them could read," presumably because it's in Japanese. He's lived there for three years and doesn't seem to know much Japanese, which is forgivable, because Japanese is one hell of a difficult language. It's not something you just pick up by living there.) Meanwhile, the mother is also unable to speak the language. She may be in Japan for the same reason her son is. She and the boy's father are "going through it," meaning having relationship troubles. Those troubles seem to have been endemic to the marriage. She reads, but does not respond to, the father's texts while she in visiting her son. 

These overlapping palavers might seem to be even more disorienting for son and mother than just having to work out their own issues would be, but it seems that having to navigate the confusing streets of Tokyo actually helps the son and mother to make progress in their own relationship. As mother and son move about, they find themselves partaking in a number of non-verbal ceremonies, almost transactional in their nature. They involve a simple gesture that is then met with a simple gesture in return. I count five total such ceremonies:

1. They are waiting for a train and a mother brings along a set of twins. "Both of her kids waved. So the mother and her son waved back."
2. The mother goes exploring while her son is at work. She sees some women in front of a shrine in a park. The women "asked the mother to take their photo, so she did. When they asked the mother if she wanted one of herself, she smiled as they snapped about forty."
3. In a bar, while waiting for her son, the mother "realized that the bartender had been watching her. They made eye contact, and the bartender nodded, reaching for another glass."
4. In a different bar, the mother orders a glass of wine, and, "Another woman sitting alone made eye contact, and the mother nodded, and she nodded too." 
5. In the final scene, the mother watches a bride taking newlywed photos. "When the woman looked up, they made eye contact. The mother smiled at her, and the woman smiled back."

The mother also engaged in a similar action-for-action ceremony with her husband. She has mostly been reading, but not responding to, his texts while she is in Japan. But when he sends just an emoji, "she responded immediately, without even thinking about it, just as a reaction. She thought about how there are some things we simply can't shake." 

That's kind of how all of these social transactions take place. They're instinctive reactions. Someone smiles at you and you smile back. Someone nods their head, and you do the same. Someone takes your photo, you offer to do the same for them.

People are sometimes critical of "transactional" habits in relationships, perhaps because it might seem like transactions involve calculations about gains and losses. That would mean people only engage in actions that benefit them, rather than out of a sense of devotion or love. 

But the simple transactions of "Palaver" are actually a key to unlocking communication for mother and son. Having learned from the simple transactions in the many "palavers" he negotiates every day, he now proposes another transactional arrangement to his mother. They will alternate telling stories. If he tells her one, she will tell him one. By swapping stories that are really about their lives, but told in a third-person "once upon a time" way, they are able to learn about each other and ultimately somewhat bridge what has been an unbridgeable gap between them. The mother resists telling her stories for a while, and instead we, the readers, get to hear the stories she would have told her son if she'd been willing to. Eventually, though, she opens up to the game, and the two seem to have gone beyond a palaver to real communication by the end.

We get a sense that the mother might have been using this method for getting through tough times in her relationship with her husband for a long time. She mentions to the son at the end something about "when you've been in a relationship with someone as long as your father and I," and her retelling of how they met suggests theirs in not simply a toxic relationship, but a loving relationship with troubles. 

The answer to why the son and the mother continue to struggle to have a relationship in spite of how difficult it is to communicate is the same as why we nod back at someone who nods to us. It's natural to do. And perhaps just the simple gesture of trying can sometimes be enough of a healing ceremony to bring a breakthrough when least expected. 

Other readings:

As usual, Karen Carlson does a more thorough job than I do of explaining background, in this case background to the word "palaver."