Saved by Flamengo\ by Paulo Mendes Campos\ I haven't been a Flamengo fan since I was a little boy, but I have a serious debt to the Gávea club, which I make public in this writing. In 1956, I spent a week in Stockholm, staying at a hotel called the Aston. It was spring, at least theoretically, there was an international congress in the city, the hotels were full, creating setbacks for tourists from the interior or foreigners. The reception at the Aston, for example, was always full of people begging for a room or discussing a reservation made by telegram or telephone. I had been in the city for two or three days when they asked me to receive a Brazilian and direct him to the hotel, where an apartment had in fact been reserved for him. It was one o'clock in the morning when we entered the hotel and I walked up to the counter clerk, giving him my friend's name and reminding him of the reservation. The employee, a man of about sixty with an honest Scandinavian face, adopted a strange and vague attitude, which at first surprised me and ended up indignant: he neither confirmed the existence of the reservation, nor did he fail to confirm it. As he began to protest, I saw his face take on a distressed expression; I understood less and less. When I started to demand the apartment with some energy, the man, trembling, nervous, apologized to me and finally brought the identification form. It was then that I saw the giant rise from the shadows of an adjoining room.\ If the reader knows a strong man, a very strong man indeed, imagine a person twice as strong, and you will have a vague idea of ​​this giant who came walking towards us, with hatred in his eyes and spectacularly drunk. The monster walked past me with contempt and, grabbing the employee by the collar of his uniform, began to shake him and insult him in Swedish. Sometimes we were drawn into this invective, as the giant would point at us while saying things.\ The employee, demonstrating a good instinct for self-preservation, would allow himself to be shaken at will. Growling frighteningly, the cyclops went to sit down again in the living room, where only then did I notice the presence of another man, also drunk, but sinisterly silent. It's today, I thought. Leaving my wonderful little Brazil, going on a huge trip, to be slaughtered without explanation by a drunk.\ The fact that it was in Sweden, where arbitrary acts of violence are not common, made my sad end even more absurd, an existentialist absurdity. I asked the employee what was going on. He was speechless. I persisted in asking, and he, whispering helplessly, explained to me what the giant was thinking: first, that he hadn't gotten a room at the hotel because he was Swedish and drunk; second, that we had gotten one because we were Americans, North Americans. Now, if my friend was in fact half-redheaded, his appearance was typical of Minas Gerais; as for me, if he were American, he could only be the son of Portuguese parents. On the other hand, my broken English left no doubt about whether I was American or not. Only a drunk Swede on a snowy, windy morning would assume we were Americans. But now it was the giant himself who shouted at us with sarcasm and anger:\ - American! American!\ I became a little more hopeful, believing that he spoke English, and I told him, exaggerating my joy and pride in this, that we were not Americans at all, we were Brazilians. He didn't understand or perhaps he thought we were cowardly denying our country, and he began to shout again, in a linguistic effort that contracted all the muscles in his face: - American! Dollar! No like!\ The words themselves meant little, but the manner of expressing them was of an eloquence that would have destroyed Catiline much more quickly than the speeches of Cicero. For a few minutes we both maintained an oratorical polemic in these terms:\ - American!\ - No, Brazilian!\ - American!\ - Brazilian!\ This versatile discussion was about to lead me to the abyss, when suddenly it seemed to me that the word “Brazilian” had finally penetrated his granite forehead. Relaxing his muscles, the giant asked me: - Brazil?! No American? Brazil?\ I wasn't sure if he was joking, but his expression was so strangely dazzled and childish that I said, full of enthusiasm:\ - Yes, Brazil!\ He stood up, staggered, approached, pointed at my friend:\ - Brazil?\ - Brazil, Brazil.\ He came over, smiling, in a state of complete grace, and shouted with his soul, as if greeting the birth of a new world:\ - Flamengo!! Falmengo!!\ Immediately, the giant went into a trance and began to do problematic tricks with an imaginary ball, but clearly giving everyone the impression of how much he admired (admired is an understatement: how much he loved) the juggling of our players.\ The giant became disenchanted, turning into a boy. At one point, after making a letter pass, he stopped and confessed to me with warm pride:\ - I Flamengo! I Rubens!\ He wasn't Swedish, he wasn't a giant, he wasn't drunk, he wasn't a former hockey champion (as I found out later), he was Flamengo, he was Rubens. Then he poked my chest, filled with dangerous doubt:\ - You! Flamengo?\ May Botafogo forgive me, but it was a matter of life or death, and I also shouted shamelessly:\ - Flamengo! Yes! Flemish! The greatest one!