Positano

Positano is the family home and refuge that gives shape to Guido Arrellio’s account of survival and return. Its hills, open air, and coast road recur at turning points in his life, linking the hunger that drove him away to the space in which he recovered and the family he eventually revisited.

Family Home and Departure

In 1945, eleven-year-old Guido left Positano on foot for Naples. His father had died in North Africa; his six-year-old brother Elio was hungry, and their mother answered catastrophe with prayer. Guido did not share her faith. He knew the Americans were in Naples and that food could be found there, so he walked the fifty kilometers to the city to support his family.

His life in Naples did not sever that connection. Once a week, he walked the coast road back to Positano carrying chocolate, money, and tins of meat. Elio no longer went hungry, while their mother prayed and lit candles in the church, taking her son’s provisions as an answer to her prayers. The repeated journey made Positano both the home he left and the place his efforts were meant to sustain.

Refuge Above the Town

After serving two years in prison, Guido spent two months in Positano, not in his mother’s home but on the hills above the town. He slept in the open, with the cliffs below, the ocean before him, and hills stretching behind. The open landscape offered a stark contrast to the confinement that had brought on acute depression: Guido had discovered in prison that he suffered from claustrophobia.

During this period of readjustment, he resolved never to let himself be caught again. The experience had not reformed him. From the hills above Positano, he also considered how to resume his life in Naples, where the brothel he had once operated had been closed and was producing no income. His refuge thus preceded a return to the city and a renewed effort to make a living there.

Return and Narrative Significance

Years later, Guido came back to Europe with Creasy and visited his family. They stayed in Positano with Guido’s aging mother, who gave thanks in the church and lit a dozen candles for her son’s safe return. Elio was then in his last term at Rome University, studying economics. The family’s circumstances had changed, but Positano remained the place where Guido’s return could be measured against his earlier departures and the mother who had waited for him.

The town’s role is defined through these movements rather than through a sustained description of its streets or buildings: a departure toward food, a recovery beneath open sky, and a homecoming with his companions. Its hills and coast road make the geography part of Guido’s history, while his mother’s presence gives the place its lasting personal significance.