Reassuring Memories

This morning I called my sister. All of the sudden I needed to talk to her and ask her about things of our childhood. For reasons that I will never ever publish and only people really close to me knows I tend to question my own memories from time to time. So I ask my sister if she remembered an opportunity when we were invited to this "birthday party" where the girls that lived a street after ours took us. It was kind of strange for me because I didn't know whose birthday was this and also because we had to pay a little bit of money (maybe like $5 Chilean pesos, in those days) to be admitted in. It was fun though.
My mom was concerned about letting us go because things were kind of shaken up a little. She heard about some shootings around the military complex near home. To get to this party we had to cross through the military complex unless we wanted to walk three times the same distance. But one of the girls that would take us there (she and her sisters were much older than me and my sister and therefore they were usually babysitting us) convinced my mom that the shootings of that morning were gone and that now everything was completely safe.
I have to make a stop here because I'm afraid that people won't understand the context if I don't explain it a little further.
In those years I was probably 7 or 8 years old and my sister 4 or 5. I don't quite remember our age at that time. We were living about a decade of military dictatorship in my country and at that moment there was no surprise on hearing shootings, having blackouts every night, being in the middle of a protest or simplely got beaten up by police just because. That was an everyday life at least at my side of the city.
The most common words in the news were "molotov", "marxism", "extremists", "terrorist" and any other that the government could use to accuse those that were opposed to Pinochet's dictatorship.
My parents have been always quiet people and were never involved in protest or political debate simplely because it was their duty to protect us and nobody wanted to be accused of being a communist or something like that. You didn't need the police to come to your house, beat you up until almost kill you and then ask the questions.
Those experiences were kind of common those days and sometimes you would know about people that went to answer the door and never came back.
In this day to day life we weren't afraid about going through a military complex because we were faced with terror so often that it wasn't so scary anymore, it was just life. Besides, there was many people that didn't even imagined that this could have an end someday so we might as well just deal with it.
My sister, the girls of the other street and other children my age walked silently throughout the military complex. Nobody wanted to get caught by a lose bullet or something like that. At the end of the military complex the exit was a small and very rusty turnstile that from my point of view was really an amusing device. I liked it so much that when the party got to an end and we headed back home in the middle of the night I run ahead of the group with somebody else that I can't remember who was, maybe other child or one of the big girls. I passed the turnstile again, excited by the magic sensation of his rusty sound and the fascinating idea of getting stock in there without ever being able to escape from its spinning. However the rust made it very hard to turn so we just passed and kept running ahead of the group. Just a few meters ahead there were two men. One was with his hands up and the other had a gun pointing at him. The first man just said almost crying "Help me please!" and by that time the rest of the group caught up with us and I just heard the voices yelling at me, and whoever the other person next to me was, to run back and get out of there. I was terrified and, the seconds before hard to move turnstile, was spinning like new. Some of the group just jump over it and some of us didn't care and just passed under it. And we run like mad. Scared we run blocks in middle of the night sure that the guy with the gun would come after us. Out of breath we stoped when we felt sure that nobody followed us. I was just a child and with no right to ask nothing. The big girls decided that we couldn't come back that way and we should just take the long road back home. It was a long walk and I was really tired.
I arrived home and I don't remember if I told something to my mom about it. And differently from what anyone could think I didn't get traumatized by that experience although I've always felt sorry for that man. Not guilty, because I was just a child and also because even if I wanted, nothing could have been done to help him. Police in those years didn't care about us, the people. Their job was to keep the population on line and scared enough to not attempt anything against the authority. Besides that, we would see them as merciless tyrants and torturers. I know that I might be unfair to them, but that was the general feeling in those days. Justice? That was just a dream that even today seems very far away from those that can't pay for it.
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I called my sister this morning and asked her if whether she remembered that strange birthday party where we had to pay to get there.
-The one where we cross the military complex? - she asked
- Yes, that one. What do you remember from that?
- not much, we cross the military complex and late that night we tried to do the same thing but we had to get out of there running.
- So you remembered that too - Now I was sure it wasn't just my imagination or a dream. - And do you remember why we have to run away?
- Not really.
- Did you get to see those two men meters after the entrance?
- No, I just remember we had to run to get out of there very fast and then we walked back home. We walked a lot.
-Thanks, I just wanted to make sure I didn't dream all that. If you remember more things, just write ok?
- OK.