Conditional Reality

My father was a police officer in Serbia in the fifties, and a loyal member of the communist party. Someone who wanted his job spread rumors about his supposed disloyalty to Tito. My father was jailed while the party investigated his background. He slowly grew sour on the party and his country. He later told me he had believed the communists were for the people, but his experience proved him wrong. When he was released after three months he escaped Serbia, rowing alone across the Adriatic Sea in a tiny boat, and arrived in Italy to begin a new life.