Jeanette Kihlberg and Sofia Zetterlund begin a relationship in a sequence that joins sudden physical intimacy to a break in Sofia’s confused sense of time. Jeanette initiates their first kiss in a lift; Sofia’s initial surprise gives way to calm and happiness, while the pause in her racing thoughts helps her recognize that some of her memories of Samuel Bai are false. Later, an unfinished confession from Jeanette and Sofia’s yes make the connection explicit and mutual.

The kiss in the lift

After Jeanette arrives at Sofia’s workplace, the two leave together. As the lift doors close and it begins to descend, Jeanette steps toward Sofia, holds her face in both hands, and kisses her. Sofia stiffens at first, taken aback. Then her body softens, calm spreads, and she closes her eyes and returns the kiss. The moment brings an abrupt stillness: Sofia’s head goes quiet, and when the lift stops and they part, she recognizes what she feels as happiness.

The scene’s intimacy is conveyed through bodily change before either woman explains what the kiss means. Sofia’s surprise is followed by a settling of her pulse and breathing; her response develops from startled stillness into reciprocation. Jeanette acts first, but Sofia’s returning kiss makes the encounter more than an advance received in silence. The lift’s brief enclosed passage gives their relationship a threshold: when its doors open, Sofia is not simply continuing the day as before.

A pause in Sofia’s confused memories

The kiss interrupts Sofia’s sense that events have been moving too quickly. She reconstructs the immediate sequence: she had been at her desk, looking through Samuel Bai’s records; Ann-Britt told her that Samuel had visited only three times; then Jeanette arrived and kissed her. When Sofia checks the time, she realizes that an hour has passed and that her memory of it contains a gap. The kiss seems to have stopped the rush long enough for her to notice what she can and cannot remember.

Sofia then distinguishes three clear memories of sessions with Samuel from other recollections that she recognizes as false. Those apparent extra sessions have become mixed with her time working for UNICEF in Sierra Leone. As the confusion lifts, she smiles at Jeanette and tells her she is glad she came. The relationship’s beginning is therefore also a moment of recognition: alongside the new intimacy, Sofia recovers a more reliable account of her recent encounters and sees that the remembered record of her treatment is not what it seemed.

From shared walk to an answer

After leaving, Jeanette and Sofia cross Södermalm by a route that resembles the Sleepwalker’s path: a semicircular detour from Swedenborgsgatan to Södra station, down to Ringvägen, past the Clarion Hotel, and north along Renstiernas gata toward the hills of Vita Bergen. The route links their emerging closeness to a pattern already associated with the Sleepwalker, even as the women now travel it together. Jeanette keeps an arm around Sofia’s waist, whispers in her ear, and kisses her neck. Their affection continues in small gestures rather than a declaration made all at once.

Later, over wine, Jeanette tells Sofia that she means a great deal to her, then falters as she tries to say what Sofia has helped her realize. Sofia prompts her to finish. The scene connects Jeanette’s hesitation to her former feeling that she ought to remain faithful to Åke; that restraint is now gone, perhaps because she has signed the divorce papers. Jeanette’s words remain incomplete, but the change in her willingness to act is clear. Sofia’s smile is no longer shy, and Jeanette says yes to her. They kiss and leave the living room together, going upstairs. The first kiss in the lift thus becomes the beginning of an acknowledged relationship, not an isolated impulse.

Narrative significance

The relationship develops through a contrast between interrupted memory and newly available feeling. Sofia cannot account for the hour that has passed, but she can identify the kiss, register her happiness, and separate three real treatment sessions from false recollections. Jeanette, meanwhile, moves from a spontaneous gesture to an answer that acknowledges what Sofia means to her. Neither moment resolves every uncertainty in their lives; together they establish a change in how the two women meet one another—as intimate partners rather than only in the roles that brought them together.