“There is a valley in the mountains, home to a spring where the flowing water always lingers in clearness. The village girls would gather there, drink the water and carry water back to their homes. It was known as the Spring of Maidens. ‘One day, you too will go there,’ my mother used to say, her voice weaving the same tale time and again. ‘You’ll drink from the spring of maidens.’”
This story, always the same and without many details, stayed with me as a bright memory from my childhood. Every time my mother told it, I listened with enthusiasm. Trapped within four walls, this story was my little glimpse of a bigger world. One day, I would go to the valley, see its beauty, breathe fresh air, meet the other girls, and drink as much water from the spring as I wanted. I could already imagine its taste, cool and refreshing, quenching a thirst deep inside me. Even then, I knew—dreams have their own flavour, too.”
We were displaced from Agdam in 1993. In the years that followed, we tried to settle in different regions of Azerbaijan, moving from house to house, meeting new people, only to lose them again. As time passed, the only proof of their existence was the fading photographs in my mother’s album—silent witnesses to a life that once was.
Everything else disappeared.
These constant changes taught us, painfully, not to grow too attached to anyone. In the end, we had only each other: our family as friends, neighbors, and relatives.
By the mid-90s, we finally arrived in Baku, where we would build a new life. We lived in a four-room apartment on the first floor of a five-story building. My father worked as a taxi driver, and my mother kept production records at an office, her days spent away from home from eight in the morning until five in the evening. My father would come home briefly for lunch, but during the day, the only residents of that house were me and my brother.
My brother, being older—and a boy—was free to come and go as he pleased. He had the streets, his friends, his adventures. But I stayed behind, waiting for my mother to return, locked behind that door every single day. I was lonely in a way only a child can be. The TV became my only companion, its movies and series filling the silence that stretched endlessly in our small home.
There were other children in the building, families with daughters my age. But my mother didn’t trust anyone, so I rarely played with them. My world was small, contained within those four walls. My only true friend was my mother, and her stories.
Of all the tales she told, the story of the Spring of Maidens was my favorite. I knew every word by heart, yet I would beg her to tell it again and again. And every time, she would tell it as if it were the first, her voice weaving a little bit of magic into my quiet world.
“The Spring of Maidens is in a beautiful place. Many girls gather there to drink its water and take it home,” my mother would say.
“Are there many girls there?” I would ask excitedly.
“Yes,” she would reply.
“Where is that spring?”
“In Kalbajar.”
“When will we go there?”
“When the time comes.”
“Will we wait a long time?”
“The lands will be returned, and we will go back. You will see it then.”
Although we lived in Agdam before the First Karabakh War, my father was born and raised in Kalbajar.
In our home, Kalbajar wasn’t just a place—it was a legend. My parents spoke of its breathtaking sights: the Tunnel, the Istisu springs, the meadows, mountains, valleys, and the vibrant flora. It was a paradise painted in words.
The Spring of Maidens, I imagined, could only be in such a beautiful place. I was just five years old when we were displaced, and while I could still remember Agdam vividly, Kalbajar was like a distant dream—I had been only a year old when I last saw it.
But in my mind, after listening to my mother’s story, I could see it clearly. When I closed my eyes, I imagined a spring surrounded by vibrant greenery, its waters sparkling in the sunlight. Girls, laughing and joyful, gathered around it, their hands reaching for the cool, water. And in this vision, I wasn’t alone anymore. I had friends. I was free. The dream of it filled my heart with hope, a hope that felt very real.
And yet, the years passed. I grew older, but the lands were still not returned. I remained confined to those same four walls. My friends were still the characters on TV, the faces in movies and series. My mother stopped talking about the Spring of Maidens as much, the stories fading into the background of our daily struggles.
But in my heart, the dream of that spring, of that beautiful place, never left me.
At that time, our lives were in turmoil. We had been forcibly evicted from our four-room home and were living in a converted vagon. It was a cramped space made worse by the intense summer heat. The sun would beat down relentlessly, turning the vagon into an unbearable oven. My mother struggled with the heat; she could hardly stand it.
The place we had moved to was so isolated that even catching a glimpse of another person felt like a rare event. I still didn’t have any friends, but now there were bigger problems. Life had become a fight for survival, leaving no time for stories…
One particularly hot day, I was fanning my mother with a piece of cardboard as she tried to sleep. I don’t know why, but in that moment, the thought of the Spring of Maidens came back to me.
“Mom,” I said, “what about the Spring of Maidens? You used to talk about it. When will we go there?”
“What spring?” she asked.
“The Spring of Maidens,” I said.
She paused for a moment before answering. “You’ve already been there. And you’ve drunk its water.”
I asked confused. “What do you mean?”
“You got your period, didn’t you? That’s what the Spring of Maidens was about.”
Her words felt heavy. I sat still, my throat tight and my eyes filling with tears. The dream that had carried me through so many lonely days had shattered in an instant.
That spring I had imagined—the lush greenery, the sparkling water, the laughing girls, the friendships I longed for—it was all a lie.
Almost two decades have passed since that conversation. I can smile about it now, but sometimes, I still feel that my mother’s story was a very cruel joke…
Illustration (c) Tora Khanim Aghabayova