Free Passion by Jeanette Winterson

St Mark's broke into a million coloured pieces. The fireworks lasted perhaps half an hour and during that time I was able to finger enough money to bribe a friend to take over my booth for a while. I slipped through the press towards the still bubbling glass slipper looking for her.
    She had vanished. There were faces and dresses and masks and kisses to be had and a hand at every turn but she was not there. I was detained by an infantryman who held up two glass balls and asked if I would exchange them for mine. But I was in no mood for charming games and pushed past him, my eyes begging for a sign.
    The roulette table. The gaming table. The fortune tellers. The fabulous three-breasted woman. The singing ape. The double-speed dominoes and the tarot
    She was not there.
    She was nowhere.
    My time was up and I went back to the booth of chance full of champagne and an empty heart.
    There was a woman looking for you,' said my friend. 'She left this.'
    On the table was an earring. Roman by the look of it, curiously shaped, made of that distinct old yellow gold that these times do not know.
    I put it in my ear and, spreading the cards in a perfect fan, took out the Queen of spades. No one else should win tonight I would keep her card until she needed it
    Gaiety soon ages.
    By three o'clock the revellers were drifting away through the arches around St Mark's or lying in piles by the cafes, opening early to provide strong coffee. The gaming was over. The Casino tellers were packing away their gaudy stripes and optimistic baize. I was off-duty and it was almost dawn. Usually, I go straight home and meet my stepfather on his way to the bakery. He slaps me about the shoulder and makes some joke about how much money Fm making. He's a curious man; a shrug of the shoulders and a wink and that's him. He's never thought it odd that his daughter cross-dresses for a living and sells second-hand purses on the side. But then, he's never thought it odd that his daughter was born with webbed feet.
    'There are stranger things,' he said.
    And I suppose there are.
    This morning, there's no going home. Fm bolt upright, my legs are resdess and the only sensible thing is to borrow a boat and calm myself in the Venetian way; on the water.
    The Grand Canal is already busy with vegetable boats. I am the only one who seems intent on recreation and the others eye me curiously, in between steadying a load or arguing with a friend. These are my people, they can eye me as much as they wish.
    I push on, under the Rialto, that strange half-bridge that can be drawn up to stop one half of this city warring with the other. They'll seal it eventually and we'll be brothers and mothers. But that will be the doom of paradox.
    Bridges join but they also separate.
    Out now, past the houses that lean into the water. Past the Casino itself. Past the money-lenders and the churches and the buildings of state. Out now into the lagoon with only the wind and the seagulls for company.
    There is a certainty that comes with the oars, with the sense of generation after generation standing up like this and rowing like this with rhythm and ease. This city is littered with ghosts seeing to their own. No family would be complete without its ancestors.
    Our ancestors. Our belonging. The future is foretold from the past and the future is only possible because of the past. Without past and future, the present is partial. All time is eternally present and so all time is ours. There is no sense in forgetting and every sense in dreaming. Thus the present is made rich. Thus the present is made whole. On the lagoon this morning, with the past at my elbow, rowing beside me, I see the future glittering on the water. I catch sight of myself in the water and see in the distortions of my face what I might become.
    If I find her, how will my future be?
    I will find her.
    Somewhere between fear and sex passion is.
    Passion is not so much an emotion as a destiny. What choice have I in the face of this