Sleepwalker

Sleepwalker is one of the names Victoria Bergman gives to the parts of herself that act beyond her conscious awareness. More than a label for wandering at night, it marks a way of living in which memory breaks, unfamiliar actions fall outside the self, and Sofia Zetterlund must later try to piece together what happened. By the end, Victoria treats Sleepwalker not as another person but as a mode of existence that has ended.

Identity and Function

In Victoria’s final account of her divided identity, Sleepwalker appears among the names she had assigned to her characteristics, alongside Gao Lian, Solace Manuti, the Worker, the Analyst, the Moaning Minnie, the Reptile, and Crow Girl. She had used these separate selves to distance herself from her own being, allowing unknown parts to deal with what she found difficult. Sleepwalker therefore belongs to a broader pattern of fragmentation rather than standing alone as an independent character.

Episodes and Consequences

The Sleepwalker’s activity is associated with repeated memory lapses and nights spent walking, visiting bars, or staggering through dark parks while drunk. One remembered episode ended at Norra Hammarbyhamnen: after going to the Clarion Hotel and leaving with a man, Victoria drank two bottles of wine by the water and fell in. The next day, Sofia sat in the kitchen in wet clothes, desperately trying to work out what had happened. The account connects the lost time to bodily consequences that Sofia had to confront without initially possessing the memory that explained them.

Ending and Significance

After leaving the Sunflower Nursing Home, Victoria drives to Norra Hammarbyhamnen for one last visit. She sits on the quay trying to understand why she has returned there repeatedly, then leaves without learning why police and forensic officers are nearby. The place thus brings her back to a site associated with a past episode even as she intends to leave that pattern behind; she does not know that she is being followed.

Victoria’s later sense of clarity gives this farewell its meaning. She understands that Sleepwalker is dead, and that she is now the one making decisions, feeling, and acting. The memory lapses and nocturnal episodes have stopped, and she no longer needs to make Sofia aware of her existence through them. She resolves to stop naming her characteristics or letting unknown parts handle difficult experiences: from then on, what happens will happen to Victoria Bergman. Sleepwalker’s disappearance is therefore part of an attempted integration, a shift from disowned actions and divided names toward a single, accountable identity.