“The Colomber” (1961)

This story by the Italian writer Dino Buzatti is short and quite mild. In the introduction to it in The Weird, editors Ann and Jeff VanderMeer compare it to a fable, which seems about right. It also has certain echoes of the short novel by Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea. A “colomber” is a made-up term for a sea monster, a giant shark that trails its prey from a distance, waiting to strike. The legend is that only the person hunted by the colomber can see it, and it will hunt you all your life. Oh, well, apparently, relatives of the hunted can also see it. The father of the main character, Stefano, is a sea captain. When Stefano turns 12 his father takes him on a voyage and they see a colomber. The father knows it means Stefano is doomed. He urges his son to stay on land. Then the father dies and, when Stefano turns 22, he decides he wants the sea life after all. He is soon pursued by the colomber but evades it and has a long career at sea—40 years. The colomber never gets him. Then he takes out a small boat to confront the colomber, who not only can communicate with him but also has a story and gift for him. The gift is a giant pearl. The story is briefly of his attempts to reach him all these years. Much sadness, much poignance. Stefano feels he has been wrong all his life. Then one more twist: “Two months later, pushed by the undertow, a small boat approached a steep cliff. It was sighted by a few fishermen, who, curious, went to see. Onboard, still seated, was a white skeleton, and between the tiny bones of its fingers it clutched a little round pebble.” The colomber gets his man, if psychologically. But did Stafano believe he was holding a pearl until the end? Or what? It seems a little silly when you start to probe at it too literally, but I thought the story was effective and worked pretty well. It does feel like a fable, but it is also baffling that way. I did not detect any meanness to the colomber in its encounter with Stefano. If anything, it seemed to pity Stefano, who was so obviously full of regret by then. For that matter, what did Stefano lose? He had a long and full career in the occupation of his choice. He may have felt shadowed by the colomber all that time but how was he supposed to know it only wanted to give him a gift? The legend sounded bad enough and he got it from his sea captain father. Maybe the colomber is death itself, which shadows us all our lives and always is coming for us. In the end perhaps it is a lustrous gift, or perhaps it is an illusion. Who can say? But you can see the thing about it being like a fable.

The Weird, ed. Ann & Jeff VanderMeer
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