The Iron Man [Serial]

Locomotion

"You speak Urdu?"

"I learned Sindhi from immigrants from Karachi and Bombay, and some words and phrases from other languages they knew. I suppose there are similarities, the way the so-called Romance languages can sound alike."

There was another silence as the man nodded and then he turned again to me. "Please, allow me to introduce myself: Arash Charmchi, consulting detective from Tehran."

"Julien Stocking," I said, "Pleased to meet you. Tehran is the capitol of Persia, isn't it?"

"Iran," Arash said. "We call our nation Iran, but you weren't to know. There has been some miscommunication since the Pax about whether we accepted both terms, as some are Parsians from Iran. I am certain the Shah will make the proper requests to recognize the name as Malik Arafa has famously done."

The train built up steam and began to slowly pull away from the station as we were speaking.

"I admit I am not well educated about your nation," I said.

"Do you live in Egypt?" Arash asked.

"Yes," I said, "but sometimes I feel like I live out of rented rooms. I do technical drawings of artifacts and archaeological sites but I hope to do fashion illustration one day."

"I would think in Egypt there was more call for work in archaeology."

"There is. It means one has to be particularly skilled to get those fewer placements in fashion. But, my current work has its perquisites; I have the fortune to meet many interesting people."

Arash nodded. "My country was a later signer of the Pax. May I ask: do you know why the Code is enforced differently here?"

"The Gendarmerie enforces the Code in all regions." To say otherwise would have been insubordinate. "There are regional sections, however."

"How?"

"From when the Pax and Dress Code were established. Perhaps to address regional needs. In Britain, only Scotsmen may wear kilts and the tartans are restricted to clan, yet in Egypt all men may wear cotton or linen kilts."

"And veils?"

"As necessitated by religion or weather conditions."

"Not in Iran. Hats also; they must now have brims."

[Photo of canopy of Misr Station in Alexandria, Egypt by Muhammad Mansour used under CC Attrib. license. https://www.flickr.com/photos/triplemimg/16023056383 ]

[Photo of Egyptian Railways Luxury Train Salon is unattributed and believed to be in the public domain due to age. http://egyptianchronicles.blogspot.com/2008/09/today-in-history-first-egyptian-railway.html ]

[Photo of Train Crossing Sinai Desert by American Colony (Jerusalem) Photo Dept. is in the public domain and part of the Matson Photo Collection of the Library of Congress http://www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/matpc/item/mpc2010007619/PP/ ]

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Chapter 86.

Media (top of page) is video of a live (Showgirl Tour) performance of "The Loco-motion" by Kylie Minogue, which is a cover of the song originally performed in 1962 by Little Eva. I like this particular live version for the jazzy slow-tempo retro style.

I've wanted for a while to include a 1930s consulting detective character in a scene on a train and yet not just do a Poirot parody. There may be more of this train (heh heh) of thought later.