THE SEVENTH CHAIR

I met Marcus Lefèvre on an October afternoon, at a small exhibition for an unknown young painter in Ménilmontant.

He stood before an oil painting of a night market, an untouched glass of wine in his hand, staring at it so long that I grew curious and stepped closer.

“What do you see in it?” I asked.

“I see a painter who doesn’t yet believe in himself,” he said, without turning. “The brushwork is beautiful, but he keeps hiding it under too many layers of color, as if he’s afraid someone will see his real skill.”

I laughed, because that was exactly what I’d been thinking too.

Marcus was thirty-two then, renting a small studio in the same building where I kept mine, on the gently sloping Rue de Ménilmontant.

He painted large oil canvases, usually of forgotten moments — an empty chair in a café, a pair of old shoes left by a doorway, a hand reaching for something just outside the frame.

He had never sold a single painting for more than five hundred euros.

He made a living teaching evening art classes for children at a community center, and took in framing jobs to cover the rest.

“Aren’t you afraid of being poor?” I asked him one evening, sitting on the studio steps, sharing a bottle of cheap wine.

“I’m more afraid of dying before I paint the picture I really want to paint,” he answered, then looked at me and smiled. “Sounds cheesy, doesn’t it?”

“No,” I said. “It sounds like the only honest person I’ve met about why they make art.”

We fell in love slowly, like two people painting the same canvas without either rushing to finish it.

I brought him home for dinner for the first time on my father’s birthday, the following March.

I remember every detail of that dinner, pinned in my memory like a painting.

Marcus wore the only wool coat he owned, brought a bottle of wine he’d saved up to buy, and a small sketch he’d drawn as a gift for my father — a portrait of him reading the newspaper, simple lines but full of life.

My father took the drawing, glanced at it briefly, and set it down on the table beside his plate.

“What do you do for work, Marcus?” my mother asked, her tone polite but probing from the very first word.

“I’m a painter, madam,” Marcus answered, his hand tightening slightly around his wine glass.

“You mean you… paint to sell?” Julien cut in, his voice carrying a faint mockery, just loud enough for the whole table to hear but not quite enough to be called out.

“That’s right. Though currently I also teach art for additional income.”

Silence stretched for a few seconds — the particular silence my family specialized in, where no one said anything, yet everyone understood exactly what it meant.

“Art is a lovely hobby,” my father finally said, eyes still on his plate. “But a man needs a real job to provide for a family.”

I saw Marcus’s hand tremble slightly on the table, just for an instant, before he composed himself again.

After dinner, walking us to the door, my mother pulled me aside and whispered just for me to hear.

“Camille, you’re still young. Don’t let a passing feeling ruin your whole life.”

I didn’t answer my mother that night.

But on the walk home, I held Marcus’s hand tighter than I ever had, as though finally answering a question no one in my family had ever sincerely asked me: what kind of life do you want to live?

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