But I had to tell Sam, “We’ll have to clear away a lot of those rocks and maybe fill in the rilles and craterlets.”
He scowled at me. “Golf courses have roughs, Charlie. Our course will be Hell for them.” Then he broke into a grin and added, “At least we won’t have any trees or deep grass.”
“Sam, if we make it too rough, people won’t play. It’ll be too tough for them.”
He just shrugged and told me to figure it out. “Don’t make it too easy for them. I want the world’s best golfers to come here and be challenged.”
I nodded and thought that trying to play golf in a spacesuit would be challenge enough, with or without the rough.
I didn’t realize that when Sam said he wanted to invite the world’s best golfers to Hell, he intended to include the woman who wrecked my life. The woman I loved.
Her name was Mai Pohan. We had known each other since kindergarten, back in Singapore. She was a slim, serious slip of a young woman, as graceful and beautiful as an orchid. But with the heart and strength of a lioness. Small though she was, Mai Pohan became a champion golfer, a world-renowned athlete. To me, though, she was simply the most beautiful woman in the world. Lovely almond-shaped eyes so deeply brown I could get lost in them. And I did.
But then my parents exploded all my dreams by announcing they had arranged for me to marry the daughter of Singapore’s prime minister, who was known in the newsnets as “the dragon lady.” And worse. I was flabbergasted.
“This is a great honor for our family,” my father said proudly. He didn’t know that I was hopelessly in love with Mai Pohan; no one knew, not even she.
For a designer of golf courses—a kind of civil engineer, nothing more—to be allied to the ruling family of Singapore was indeed a great honor. But it broke my heart.
I tried to phone Mai Pohan, but she was off on an international golf tour. With misty eyes, I e-mailed her the terrible news. She never answered.
Like a dutiful son, I went through the formalities of courtship and the wedding, which was Singapore’s social event of the year. My bride was quite beautiful and, as I discovered on our wedding night, much more knowledgeable about making love than I was.
Through my mother-in-law’s connections, I received many new contracts to design golf courses. I would be wealthy in my own right within a few years. I began to travel the world, while my wife entertained herself back in Singapore with a succession of lovers—all carefully hidden from the public’s view by her mother’s power.
It was in the United States, at the venerable Pebble Beach golf course in California, that I saw Mai Pohan once again. She was leading in a tournament there by three strokes as her foursome approached the beautiful eighteenth hole, where the blue Pacific Ocean caresses the curving beach.
I stood among the crowd of onlookers as the four women walked to the green. I said nothing, but I saw Mai’s eyes widen when she recognized me. She smiled, and my heart melted.
She barely won the tournament, three-putting the final hole. The crowd applauded politely and I repaired to the nearby bar. I rarely drank alcohol, but I sat at the bar and ordered a scotch. I don’t know how much time passed or how many drinks I consumed, but all of a sudden Mai sat herself primly on the stool next to mine.
My jaw dropped open, but she gave me a rueful smile and said, “You almost cost me the tournament, Chou.”
“I did?” I squeaked.
“Once I saw you I lost all my concentration.”
“I . . . I’m sorry.”
She ordered a club soda from the man-sized robot tending the bar while I sat beside her in stunned silence.
“It’s been a long time,” she said, once her drink arrived.
“Yes.”
“How is married life?”
“Miserable.”
Those fathomless eyes of hers widened a bit, then she smiled sadly. “I’m almost glad.”
I heard myself blurt, “You’re the one I love, Mai. My family arranged the marriage. I had to go through with it.”
“I know,” she said. “I understand.”
“I love you.” It seemed inane, pointless—cruel, almost—but I said it.
Very softly, so low that I barely heard her, Mai replied, “I love you too. I always have.”
I kissed her. Right there at the bar. I leaned over and kissed her on the lips. The first and last time we ever kissed.
Mai said, “Like it or not, you’re a married man.”
“And you. . .?”
“I could never marry anyone else.” There were tears in her eyes.
That was my encounter with Mai Pohan. That was all there was to it. But we must have been observed, probably by one of the paparazzi following the golf tournament. By the time I got back to Singapore my wife was raging like a forest fire and her mother was hiring women to testify in court that I had fathered their illegitimate children. The police produced DNA evidence, faked of course, but my defense attorney didn’t dare to challenge it.
My parents disowned me. My contracts for new golf courses disappeared. I was alone, friendless, on my way to jail, when Sam whisked me to the Moon.
Four hundred thousand kilometers away from Mai Pohan.
And now she was coming to Hell Crater!
