Now I faced the critical decision. Should I ask Katherine to marry me?
Had my friend Michele been still alive, I would have visited him. Here in Sarajevo I felt all alone. Who could help me?
One evening, after dinner, I remembered a legend which a Hadjinica (a female Hadji) from the old city had recently told me.
Near the Latin or Princip's Bridge there is a mosque. In the eastern wall of the mosque there are seven windows fitted with green wooden bars. Behind the windows Is a small room housing seven graves. The place is called "With The Seven Brothers". The story takes place during the reign of the Ottomans. Seven men, who had declared themselves brothers in Islam, came to Sarajevo. The legend says that at the very time that the men entered Sarajevo, the city treasure, guarded by the Vesir, was stolen. The seven strangers were suspected and immediately thrown into the palace prison to await trial. The judge asked them to make a confession and they denied guilt. So the judge issued an order for six of the men to be killed, sparing one.
After the execution, the lone survivor was again asked by the judge: 'Tell me who robbed the treasury, and you will be set free."
The last brother answered: "I'll tell you only under the condition that you will kill me as you have killed my friends", and he told the judge that the real robbers could be found fleeing on horseback along the river Drina, towards the city of Visegrad. The Vesir's forces eventually succeeded in arresting the real robbers. And then the judge was forced to kill the seventh one.
Before the last brother died, he said: "May you forever miss money in this town."
Today there is a custom in Sarajevo that anyone needing the answer to a difficult issue, should visit the grave of The Seven Brothers, throw a coin through each window, and then walk away. A warning: one should never leave the grave of The Seven Brothers in the same direction in which one approaches. The night before visiting the grave, the coins should be put beneath one's pillow.
On leaving the grave, one must listen carefully to what the first people they meet are saying. Within the words of those persons, will lay the answer.