Of all the men I saw, I only liked Noureddine Khayachi. He was the only man I ever loved. We lived happily together. We understood each other perfectly. He never spoke to me disrespectfully and I always paid him the greatest respect. That is what true conjugal harmony means. A lot of people think that artists must be difficult to live with because they are a bit odd,

but having spent most of my life with Khayachi, I can tell you that this is not true. Artists don’t have something ‘missing’ but do have something that other people don’t – they are more attentive to the truth about people and the value of things. It is true that my husband never taught me to paint but he did teach me to see. He has all my love and all my affection. He always believed in mens sana in corpore sano and took care to look after his image and the way he talked and behaved, to care for both his body and his soul. He left nothing to chance. In everything he sought perfection – his person, his family, his life, his work and, of course, his art.