A gray haze sits over the pale blue water as the charcoal silhouette of a small yacht whips silently past a motorboat along the horizon.  Four burly men are parked around a plastic table at Moscow on the Hudson, smoking cigarettes and beginning the day the same way it will end.  One leans on the rail at the edge of the boardwalk a few feet from me, looking askew across the open landscape, imperturbed.  Stray babushkas make their way in purposeful straight lines towards the ocean, beach chairs held in close by stubby arms.  Others stroll perpendicularly along the boardwalk in floral patterned uniforms.  The Doppler effect of a shirtless old man with a radio secured to his bicycle softly broadcasts smooth jazz behind me, nearing the end of its loop.  Middle-aged men do sit-ups on flat benches.  A few latino and black park employees haphazardly rake litter into a row of loose piles along the edge of the sand.  A young girl returns from the water carrying just her sandals while another with radically dyed orange hair and a fuchsia tennis outfit warms up against a lamp post that waves the flag, “Bay 2″.

The baked and fried dough monger with her unobtrusive sales pitch calling out like a gull swooping across the boardwalk has yet to arrive outside Winter Garden.  All for the best.  Home-Style Kitchen with its street-level fried dough offerings is likewise shuttered.  A plan formulates in my mind for securing the morning’s coffee and khachapuri.  An elegant man with white hair, white mustache, and a white suit picks lint quietly from a folded paper tissue as I take the steps up to the train.

Exiting the train, Malik, my building’s gruff Paki superindendent and I exchange expressionless hellos as he bee-lines for the check cashing store.  I continue on to Leila’s Family Store.  It’s open.  I ask the burly man behind the counter if he has coffee.   “Yes, of course.  You like milk or half and half?”  I pour coffee from the thermos marked “Regular” while he removes the milk from the fridge.  I can see that there is just one khachapuri left from his wife’s early morning batch.  They go quickly.  He pours milk until I say “Ok,” then he returns it to the fridge.  His wife uses the good cheese, kashkaval or sulguni, not the tvorog found elsewhere.  I hope the khachapuri is still warm from the oven.  A fluffy black cat’s head sticks out of a cubby staring at my knees, between boxes of chocolate and imported confections.  “What’s his name?” I ask.  “Kanli,” says the man with the deeply ingrained grimace.  “It means ‘blood’ in Turkish.” He repeats the grimace, “Kanli… ‘blood’ in Turkish.”

Red glove Homecrest, Brooklyn

Lo and behold, there is an Uyghur restaurant in Brighton Beach, Cafe Kashkar.  I’d heard about the plight of the Uyghurs in northwestern China, and their position on the endangered species list due to the Chinese policy of ethnic resettlement.  The US has its own policy of resettling Uyghurs to Bermuda, but Cafe Kashkar is, for now, still on Brighton Beach serving delicious food.  So a meal seemed urgent.

The interior of the place has what Nina describes as Uzbeki decorations: colorful flowers and textiles and glitzy ornaments hung from the walls.  She was of the impression that the Uyghurs were Uzbekis, not Chinese.  The wait staff certainly look more Uzbeki than Chinese, and they speak Russian, which explains the restaurant’s location.

Langsai and samsa

After requesting recommended traditional dishes of the waiter, he yelled back to the kitchen, “Hey, I need a translation!” in Russian.  Another waiter explained the situation.  We would start with a pot of excellent green tea while we waited for langsai, a glass noodle salad with cilantro, thinly sliced vegetables and vinegar; this would be followed by samsa, a type of filo pastry filled with lamb and chopped onions;  then another type of bready dough ball with a similar lamb and onion filling; and for the main entree, we would share geiro lagman, spicily sauced thick homemade noodles sauteed with peppers, onions, scallions, green beans, and garlic covering chunky pieces of tender marinated lamb.

Somewhere between the samsa and geiro lagman, I noticed three women huddled together at the table opposite ours, staring intently at the open hand of a plump one dressed in traditional central Asian headdress.  I indicated to Nina to look, and her eyes filled with sudden desire.  The woman was having her palm read by a central Asian diviner, and there are few things Nina loves more than having her future read.

Geiro lagman

The psychic noticed Nina ogling, and an exchange began in Russian, “Oh… I’d like to have my fortune read,” gushed Nina.  To which the woman responded, “You have to pay for that”.  “Oh, I’ll gladly pay!” said Nina leaning forward with anticipation.  The women all chuckled and returned their collective gazes to the plump Uzbeki’s hand.  They had laughed Nina off.  Nina was not being taken seriously, and there are few things Nina dislikes more than not being taken seriously.

She stared at me wide-eyed with astonishment for a few moments, before reuptaking the geiro lagman, clearly preoccupied with thoughts of psychics, possible futures, humiliation, and the great unknown.  Shortly thereafter, the plump Uzbeki with the hand and the headdress and her friend returned to their jobs preparing food in the kitchen, and the psychic turned towards Nina, staring across the restaurant.  “Ok, come, I’ll read your palm,” she said matter-of-factly in proper Russian.  Geiro lagman be damned, Nina ran over and sat beside her at the table.

Never thank a psychic.

Nina and the Uyghur psychic