The Making and Keeping of Enemies

By Roger Rosenblatt

Anyone can make friends these days, since the claims to friendship are usually based on "Hello" and a lunch; but the making of enemies, there is an art to that. It is infinitely harder to win enemies than friends, and harder still to hold on to them. Remember: the subject is real enemies, not just those pests of whom one thinks with a dull, bored ache from time to time, or those whose irritating presence makes one pine for Madagascar. A real enemy is in a different league. He is a hated hater, a mirror image of one's meanest desires. He wants to do unto you exactly as you would do unto him.

Such people are rare and valuable, and with the proper care and feeding they may last a lifetime. An enemy well nurtured is a joy forever. When he is not maligning you in public, he is maligning you in private; when he is not maligning you in private, he is contemplating doing so. Wherever he is, some assault against your person is being committed. Wherever he has been, your bones lie heaped. He is enormous. In your dreams his shoulders press against your skull. He himself never sleeps. There is too much mischief to be done, too many calumnies begging to be aired. And think: it is you who brought this creature into being. He lives and fumes solely for you.

No wonder, then, that writers have taken such pains to portray the power of certain enemies, that power being a testament to their heroes' own. Milton gave Satan the height of a colossus in order to emphasize the magnificence of his opponent. Similarly, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had Holmes near quavering when Professor Moriarty first filled his doorway: "My nerves are fairly proof, Watson, but I must confess to a start when I saw the very man who had been so much in my thoughts standing there on my threshold. His appearance was quite familiar to me. He is extremely tall and thin, his forehead domes out in a white curve, and his two eyes are deeply sunken in his head." Not that enemies have to be great in physical stature; small people often make the very best. It is that they must be huge in the imagination, ubiquitous, ready to don disguises or change shape entirely. Perhaps the point that Satan wished to make by turning into a serpent is that if one is to be susceptible to enmity, he will find it in even the lowest forms.

Enemies like Satan are the top of the line, of course, which is why one discovers them only in fiction. Real-life enemies are rarely protean; usually they assume a single form with which they are comfortable, and stick with it. There is the help-seeking enemy, for example, who plays upon the odd fact of human behavior that by requesting your aid or advice he lowers himself before you and thus disables your wrath by your own sense of shame. Then too there is the help-giving enemy, who attempts to pile so much generosity about your head that you are brought to your knees in response. There is the next-of-kin enemy as well, who takes out on a loved one the wickedness he intends for you. Finally, there is the worthiest of the lot, the open-and-aboveboard enemy, who declares straight out that he yearns for your obliteration. Unfortunately, people of this type are so admirable that the temptation to convert them to friends may be overwhelming. This one must resist. If it is true that former friends make the best enemies, the converse is also true, and one would hate himself for destroying a fine antipathy through sheer carelessness.

History is, in fact, littered with once bitter feuds that sweetened over time simply because the combatants lacked the will or the stamina to sustain them. For three delightful centuries, the Nicolotti and Castellani families of Venice enjoyed so virulent a relationship that citizens would gather to watch them fight it out on what came to be called the Ponte dei Pugni, the Bridge of Fists. If they were not doing battle there, they were knocking one another about on a drawbridge that the authorities would raise, leaving the two factions glowering at each other impotently from opposite sides. Yet the brawls eventually dissipated into athletic contests, and in 1848 the families were formally reconciled in a ceremony at dawn. The pact was kept secret so as not to dismay the rest of the city.

Dickens and Thackeray warred warily for years--as only competing authors can--over implied slights and suggested injuries. But this feud also disintegrated in conciliatory mutters and a handshake. So it goes too often. Even the Hatfields and the McCoys are said to be on cordial terms these days. Who knows but that in the dank, unhealthy future lies the collective rapprochement of Lillian Hellman, Mary McCarthy, Diana Trilling, Truman Capote, Gore Vidal and Norman Mailer--all hugging wildly or nodding demurely in disgusting displays of propriety? One can hardly rely on anything.

The trouble is that great enmities often flourish between equally great people, and no matter how harsh or deep the animosity, a good enemy will often become first recognizable, then familiar and eventually even likable. "My only love sprung from my only hate!" said Juliet, thus crumbling in an exclamation what her forebears took decades to develop. When the American Civil War was over, Walt Whitman lamented: "My enemy is dead, a man divine as myself is dead." With enemies like that, who needs friends! This is the danger of applying conscience to what ought to be conducted by naked reflex. It is benumbing to consider how many perfectly good enmities have been ruined by the imposition of gentleness, fatigue or common sense.

But how does one go about creating a perfectly good enmity, one that will bud and flower and last? A direct insult is effective on occasion, especially if the insult is housed in a witticism that the prospective enemy does not quite get. This affords two offenses at once. A demonstration of superiority will do even better, particularly when accompanied by one's earnest desire not to belittle one's opponent. (The opponent will always be aware of this, and despise you more for the effort.) Ingratitude, treachery, a difference of opinion or principle, these things make enemies too; but suprisingly they tend to wear away fairly soon, perhaps because they are blatant offenses and thus offer greater chance of amelioration by being discrete and defined. True enmities are subtler. Indeed, a very good way to make an enemy is often simply to be oneself, since many enemies genuinely enjoy the idea of being enemies and are keenly on the lookout for enemies of their own.

If Othello had not existed, for instance, lago would surely have had to invent him; otherwise lago would have had no guiding purpose for his mischief, no reason to realize his full potential for troublemaking. In the same way, Richard Nixon undoubtedly needed his enemies list more for self-definition than for self-protection. Some people are not themselves without a multitude of targets for their bile or fears, so they deliberately ensure their own supply. Gossips are in this category. Gossips never lack for enemies. Since they are born envying the universe, they inevitably regard it as hostile.

For such reasons it is easier to make an enemy than to preserve one, though, as in the making, there are established ways to prevent one's enemies from slipping away. Proximity helps considerably. Neighbors and schoolmates make excellent antagonists because the frequent sight of each other enhances mutual contempt; the eyes narrow so eloquently in the halls. Injury is useful as well. There is nothing like an enemy's knowledge that he has done you harm to make him loathe you all the more. Forget not success either. Your achievement of anything, including momentary cheer, will keep the enemy seething like a Doberman. Nor put away charity. The effect of kindness on an enemy is absolutely devastating, and the advantage of employing it is that one might achieve revenge and sainthood simultaneously.

Of course the purest way to keep an enemy at a boil is to ignore him entirely. Howard Roark, the Nietzschean architect of Ayn Rand's mesmerizing nutwork, The Fountainhead, produces a stunning effect when he is confronted by his archenemy, Ellsworth Toohey. Alone with Roark, Toohey asks: "Why don't you tell me what you think of me?" Roark replies: "But I don't think of you." This tactic has two disadvantages, however. First, in order for it to work, it has to come naturally, and very few people are so thoroughly self-absorbed as to pay their enemies no heed whatever. Second, there is something positive to be gained by acknowledging one's enemies. Like all God's creatures, enemies have a purpose in the world. They offer a criticism of one's conduct (albeit unsought) that is not always provided by friends. They also encourage selfesteem. How would we know the magnitude of our own worth without someone so worthless attacking it?

But this is sophistry too in a way; for the deep pleasure in the making and keeping of an enemy lies not in his redeeming social value but in the peculiar passion he lends to life. There is simply no force in nature like him, none that can so suck the oxygen from the air, so tighten the skin about the ears, so clench the fists, sweat the palms, so press the tongue against the mouth's roof or stretch the nerves Like piano wires. His concentration on you is total. He cares more about your welfare than you do yourself, and he asks so little in return. Only that you continue as you are and that you offer him the same consideration.

See. Here he comes now. Do you ever feel quite this way with anyone else? Does anybody's smile or greeting affect you as his does? The earth rumbles under his step, horses rear, roses wilt, the stars themselves cool in the dark. It is hard to believe a mere mortal could cause such turmoil. But there you are. --By Roger Rosenblatt

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