Dampyr #69 (2006) pages 73-74: Onion Lullabye

The Chilean protest singer Juan Lopez has composed a song based on 'Onion Lullabye,' a poem of Miguel Hernandez, who was imprisoned during the Spanish Civil War. Hernandez wrote it on toilet paper after hearing that his wife and infant son were so malnourished that they had nothing to eat but an onion:

The onion is frost, shut in and poor.

Frost of your days and of my nights.…

My little boy was in hunger's cradle…

Laugh, son, you can swallow the moon when you want to.

Lark of my house, keep laughing.

The laughter in your eyes is the light of the world.

Laugh so much that my soul, hearing you, will beat in space.

Your laughter frees me, gives me wings.

It sweeps away my loneliness, knocks down my cell…

Fly away, son, on the double moon of the breast:

It is saddened by onion, you are satisfied.

Don't let go. Don't find out what's happening, or what goes on.

(Alan Rogers sees that Lopez's crying infant is quieted by his mother’s breastfeeding and his father's singing.) “He seems to be listening.”

“I told you, he likes music. He must be a musician too.”

“That’s quite a smile!”

“He's happy when he hears his father sing.”

(The flashback ends, and we're back in the house of older Guerrero with Harlan and Baldwyn.) “These lines have never left my mind. One of Juan Lopez's most beautiful songs. But he never recorded the full version. He didn't have time.”

“He died during the coup, right?”

“He was tortured to death at the Estadio Nacional where I was also locked up... And to think that I was the one who introduced Alan Rogers to our circles! But he seemed like a good guy. He played Woody Guthrie songs...”

(Baldwyn) “... while in reality he was an infiltrator, a CIA agent.”

“That bastard! I only found out later, when I saw him with them. Why do you force me to remember those moments?”

The last panel on this page begins another flashback. I'll include its dialogue on the next post for the sake of narrative flow.