Munir admired Munira and her name before their marriage, but he did not love her then. He loved her after marriage without ever telling her about his feelings. He loved her laugh and the look in her eyes when she was excited, and loved her shy but daring manner. They lived together for three years that were free of crises. One morning he was surprised by her sudden death – she who was never sick and who had gotten him used to waking up every morning to the aroma of the coffee she prepared for him while he was still in bed. But on that day he woke up late and found Munira lying next to him in very deep sleep. He tried to wake her but she did not wake up. The doctor determined she had died at dawn from a heart attack. Munir did not cry as she was laid in her coffin and taken out of the house. And he did not cry as he walked down the alleyways behind those carrying the coffin on their shoulders. He did not cry as she was laid to rest under the ground. His people and her people blamed him, accusing him of ingratitude and forgetfulness of sharing bread and salt. Munir did not try to defend himself and slept alone in the bed where he used to sleep with his wife. Munira came to him in a dream and said he shouldn’t feel sad because she wouldn’t part from him and wouldn’t let him feel in need of anyone. She visited him another night and advised him to end his relationship with one of his friends, but he said in utter surprise, “But he’s a brother, and not just a friend.”
She insisted that his friend was a drug dealer in secret and would soon be arrested and sent to prison for twenty or thirty years and would expose all his friends to serious difficulties. Munir quickly found an excuse to pick a fight that led to enmity and an end to the relationship with his friend. No more than a few weeks had passed when his friend was chosen as minister of the interior, and he set about serving his own interests and the interests of his friends. Munir then became resentful of Munira and her advice. When he decided to invest in a house, Munira advised him not to buy because house prices were going to fall in a few weeks. Munir changed his mind about buying, but house prices quickly went up, and his resentment of Munira and her tips increased. She then visited him in his dream with her face in a frown and asked him not to listen to his family’s insistent demands to marry the woman they had chosen for him. Munira said this woman would drive anyone who married her crazy. He did not listen to her and married the woman, and he did not become crazy. He mocked Munira, and she became angry and stopped visiting him. He then married a second woman and a third and a fourth. To friends who found this strange, he said, “He who marries four will have a life of ease because they will compete in pampering him and making his life comfortable. They will differ among themselves, and this will double their efforts to win his favor.”
What he said was true, for he could see his four wives arguing among themselves and hating each other. He was pleased with the success of his plan, not realizing that their argument was nothing more than an act put on to please him once it became clear to them that they had an excellent life, with nothing to spoil it except his existence. They would be in heaven if he were to disappear. They competed in cooking fatty foods for him and desserts that relied heavily on unadulterated cream and pure ghee. Munir ate voraciously, as if each meal was going to be his last, and his wives competed in seducing him day and night, not leaving him alone until he turned into a thing suitable for throwing into the garbage. He changed, became fat, and was struck by all the known diseases, all of which led to his leaving the house in a coffin with a bearded man in front who cried out: “O you who hear this! Forgive the deceased Munir Ibn Said Ibn Khadija.”
After his death his wives did not part, but lived together in the house. Munir had left them in need of no one. All four of them took care to visit his grave every week wearing black clothes, but Munir would get angry, believing that their visits had no other purpose than to make sure he was still dead.