Death in Samarra: Fiction

Samarra, 1937. Sampled from the British National Archive

Nina Michiko Tam

On his days off, Death enjoyed strolling the souk. He liked the sunlight that sheared in between the stalls and gleamed on the copperwork. He liked the sound of the smiths’ mallets hitting metal, like a heartbeat or a drum. It was the sound of seven hundred years passing.

Death remembered the time before the souk. He remembered when the mud huts first appeared in the bulrushes along the Tigris. He remembered when the caliph Al-Mansur commanded the great city’s rise from the rose-pink soil, an impressive feat of human will. After a particularly busy work trip––filthy Europeans and their plagues––he had returned to Baghdad and discovered, to his delight, that the coppersmiths had constructed this narrow alleyway and lined it with their wares. Each visit, he promised himself that one day he would buy something. Perhaps a serving bowl, its smooth curve drawn by a thousand flicks of a man’s wrist, a thousand beats of a hammer.

But that visit was not like other visits. As he bent low to examine a particularly artful copper vase, he heard the sound. Death had taught himself to read such sounds, formed only by the shape of a human mouth and airway. But underneath ran an electric current of animal fear. 

At the gasp, Death raised his head to see his next appointee. The man was clad in the pale linen of a servant. His eyes were wide with an emotion that Death had grown to recognize, often paired with symptoms: urine streaming down legs or tears soaking faces, for humans were filled with fluid and terror. Well, this man did not piss himself or cry, but neither was Death surprised when the man pivoted and ran. Many appointees ran, but none ran quicker than Death.

But today Death did not give chase. He stood in the souk, surrounded by the cacophony, stunned not by the man’s reaction but by the man himself. For Death was certain that the appointment was scheduled for Samarra, not Baghdad. He felt disheartened, for it was too late to recoup his deposit on the lodgings he’d booked in Samarra. And a Baghdad appointment required entirely different logistics. Such planning would certainly swallow his free afternoon. Rather than cut his losses prematurely, he decided to exercise prudence by paying a visit to the man’s master.

The master was a well-traveled man who had known many close encounters with Death. The master greeted Death like an old friend. The house was hushed and cool, with intricate tapestries lining the walls. The master called for the silver brazier, lined with coals. On these coals the master warmed the silver kettle for tea. Death lacked the ability to taste but enjoyed the reflection of the dusky coals on the polished surface of the kettle. But when Death asked after his appointee, the master was astonished. The master told Death that the appointee was gone. After returning from the souk, the man had taken a horse and fled Death by way of Samarra.

Ah, thought Death. So he had the appointment correct after all. He thanked the master for the tea and stepped from the cool house into the intense sun that bleached his bones. He thought, with great pleasure, of his free afternoon that stretched ahead. In fact, his pleasure was magnified because he had thought his afternoon lost and now it had returned to him. What to do until his evening appointment? The idea came to him as clearly as he had heard the fear fringing his appointee’s gasp. He should go to the souk and purchase the copper serving bowl that he had been eyeing for so many years. Yes, thought Death. That is what he should do.

Nina Michiko Tam is a half-Japanese and half-Chinese writer who was born and raised on the island of O'ahu, Hawai'i. Her debut novel, Tastes Like Seeing God, is forthcoming from Pamela Dorman Books/Penguin Random House. She recently won the 2025 Asian American Writers' Workshop Pages-In-Progress Award and is an alum of the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference. A graduate of Yale Law School, by day she works as a civil- rights attorney in Houston, Texas. This is her first published piece of fiction.

W. Somerset Maugham’s retelling of "The Appointment in Samarra"

The speaker is Death. There was a merchant in Bagdad who sent his servant to market to buy provisions and in a little while the servant came back, white and trembling, and said, Master, just now when I was in the marketplace I was jostled by a woman in the crowd and when I turned I saw it was Death that jostled me.  She looked at me and made a threatening gesture,  now, lend me your horse, and I will ride away from this city and avoid my fate.  I will go to Samarra and there Death will not find me.  The merchant lent him his horse, and the servant mounted it, and he dug his spurs in its flanks and as fast as the horse could gallop he went.  Then the merchant went down to the marketplace and he saw me standing in the crowd and he came to me and said, Why did you make a threatening gesture to my servant when you saw him this morning?  That was not a threatening gesture, I said, it was only a start of surprise. I was astonished to see him in Bagdad, for I had an appointment with him tonight in Samarra.

Courtesy of Extracts

"The Appointment in Samarra" as told in the Babylonian Talmud

One day Solomon saw that the Angel of Death was sad. He said to him: Why are you sad? He said to him: They are asking me to take the lives of these two Cushites who are sitting here. Solomon handed them to the demons in his service, and sent them to the district of Luz, where the Angel of Death has no dominion. When they arrived at the district of Luz, they died.

The next day, Solomon saw that the Angle of Death was happy. He said to him: Why are you happy? He replied: In the place that they asked me to take them, there you sent them. The Angel of Death was instructed to take their lives in the district of Luz. Since they resided in Solomon's palace and never went to Luz, he was unable to complete his mission. This saddened him. Ultimately, Soloman dispatched them to Luz, enabling the angel to accomplish his mission. That pleased him. Immediately, Solomon began to speak and said: The feet of the person are responsible for him; to the place where he is in demand, there they led him.

Courtesy of Extracts